"No; two days is n't enough," the man mused to himself. "Enough to let you see if you see it, though," he went on, his voice sinking to a whisper, "or if I'm crazy. I have n't told Agnes. She 's had enough, poor girl, without worrying about me, too."

Lara

"What do you think you see?" bee's voice was reassuring. "We often have patients that are troubled by illusions. That 's nothing to go to pieces over, man.”

"It's not, eh? My God, Doctor, not with the man standin' there lookin' at me from under that dirty blue cap and me never knowin' when the crazy fool will take it off and wave it at me?"

"Oh," said the doctor, speaking easily and reaching for another cigarette. "Go ahead with the rest of it, Dennis. Out with it. Where is the man? How often does he appear?"

The blood slowly receded from Throop's face, leaving it gray white. His eyes, as they gazed straight ahead, became fixed, and his mouth loosened and sagged with fear. By an effort he raised himself from his chair, knocked the ashes from his pipe, against the andirons, and stood in front of the fire, an awkward figure, his hands crossed behind his back.

As he stood his gaze was fixed on the door leading into the hall, just in back of the doctor's chair. There was a sudden dropping of Throop's lower jaw, an audible catching of the breath, his hands unclasped from behind his back and clenched at each side, and finally he blinked and then closed his eyes for a minute as if to shut out the vision.

Larabee felt a little prickling of his spine as he sat watching the fear on Dennis's face. The room, warm and light, seemed as usual, but the wind was wailing as it tugged at shutters and blinds, and the trees creaked as if they were being tortured. Larabee spoke with an effort.

"Dennis, talking about a thing does n't make it any worse. Can't you get ahead and tell us about it?" The speech made action easier, and he was able to cross his leg with unconcern and blow a cloud of smoke from his cigarette. All the while Dennis was slowly getting control of himself.

His

"That's the first time," he muttered, as if he were alone,-"that 's the first time he ever came when I was n't on the car." He stood more erectly. pipe was empty, and the hand that held it trembled visibly. He looked down at Larabee and then moved toward his own chair, pulling it around a bit so that he partly faced the door.

"You did n't see the rays from a bit of a red light, did you now?" he asked almost apologetically as he let himself down into the chair.

"Not a glimmer," answered Larabee, cheerfully. "How long have you been this way, old man?"

Dennis made a ghastly attempt to smile.

"I'm all right now," he said almost in a whisper, "but that was an unexpected one. I could n't get my bearin's for a minute."

"You mean that you saw a man or something right here now?" Larabee gestured with obvious unconcern.

"Yes, Doctor. I guess I'm clean daft. Unless it means- " he started up again. His face twisted, and he looked as if he were about to whimper. "He came that way the night the children died, wavin' a red light, he was, as real as if I could touch him. And I went home, and they were gone, both gone." He looked around a little wildly. "I guess I'll have to go, Doctor. You see he don't always mean somethin', but he did then, and he 's never been in a house, like just now, before to-night. Always on the track, three times since he 's been on the track, and maybe maybe" His voice broke, and a tear rolled down his thin, brown cheek. "You don't mind my goin' like this, do you, Doctor?"

"I certainly do. You are my patient for the next few minutes. You 've got to pull yourself together before you go home, and I 've got to know more about it. You are going to drink what I give you and do as I tell you."

Dr. Larabee no longer held his cigarette. He was on his feet, opening the door into a wall closet, where he busied himsel with a glass and some bottles. When he turned to Dennis Throop he found the man watching him with a curiously humbled expression, as

if against his will he was obeying some one whose authority he dared not contradict.

Under the influence of his drink, he leaned back more easily in his chair, and then the doctor, pulling his own up close, began in a serious, matter-of-fact voice.

"This is very grave, Dennis. Your condition needs attention, and you need n't be ashamed to ask for it. I want to know as soon as you can tell me before you go back to Agnes what it is that you are seeing. It's a man with a red light. Is that so?"

Dennis nodded. He passed his hand over his forehead, and it came away wet. But with his blue bandana he mopped his head courageously and began to speak. He tried this time to keep his eyes on the doctor.

"A year ago in September," he began, "I ran over a man." He paused, but

Larabee made no sound.

The fire crackled pleasantly, and the doctor leaned to one side, and turned down the wick of the lamp a trifle. Then he said:

"All right. Go on, Throop."

"I ran over a man," repeated Throop. "It was the first run I made after Agnes got better of a bad attack, and I was a fool for lack of sleep. I was just runnin' down South Bear Slope, past one of those little platform stops. They call it 'Stop Six,' and there was no one at the station, so I did n't let up any on speed. There's a steep bank comes down there on either side just before you get to the stop, and yet there 's enough of a curve so you can see the platform before you get out of the cutting. Just as we were comin' through

"

Throop's voice became very even and unemotional; he was evidently trying to impress the doctor with his poise "Just as we were comin' through, a man in a blue workman's blouse and a pair of blue overalls came up over the top of the bankin' a little way ahead, and waved his cap at me. Then he began to come down. You never saw such speed in your life, Doctor. He took a sideways path right in front of the car, and the thing was over in a second. I put on the brakes, and we came to a

stop. There was a kind of jolt when the front wheels went over his body. We only had two passengers, and they were strangers from the village inn. Watters was on as conductor, and he never came forward at all, just stared at me through the door and then rang his damned bell. I had got out of the car by this time and motioned for him to come around outside; so he did, still lookin' blank and puzzled. I thought he 'd help me lift the car off the man, but as I stooped down by the side of the fender-I-there was n't anything there."

Larabee did not answer for a minute, then he said evenly:

"That was jolly lucky for you, old chap. I should think you'd rather keep Watters guessing than get into court for manslaughter."

He

"I don't know, Doctor. There 's worse things than court, I guess. Watters looked at me as if he thought I was somebody else, and I said, 'He did n't roll under the car at all. must have gone up the other bankin'.' 'Who?' said Watters, and he still looked at me. 'Why, the man in the blue overalls that was wavin' his cap from the top of the cuttin'.' And then Watters said: "There was n't any man in blue overalls. You must be drunk or crazy.' And I was n't drunk, Jack."

The old boyhood name slipped out with unconscious familiarity as Dennis leaned toward his friend.

"Go ahead," said Larabee.

"I saw the man afterward, and that sort of convinced me that I was n't such a fool, after all. Not a month later he was waiting at Stop Six to get on, just like any other passenger. It was the five o'clock run, and the car was full. I did n't look back, but when Watters rang the bell after I stopped, I went ahead as usual. as usual. Afterward I joked him about it. We were comin' out of the car barn together that night. 'Well, now will you believe that there's such a man as my friend in the blue overalls?' I asked him. And he gave me one of those looks again. 'What are you gettin' at?' he asked me back. 'I'm gettin' at the fact that I took on my workman friend at Stop Six to-night.' 'So that's what you held us up there

"I see," he said. "Well, don't mind Watters. You 're over-tired, Dennis.”

"I do mind Watters and I won't work with him," Throop said roughly. "I had my hours changed, anyway, this winter, because I could do more for Agnes if I worked late at night and stayed at home in the mornings. Besides," he tried to speak lightly, "I thought perhaps there would be less chance of takin' on passengers at Stop Six in the night."

"Does Agnes know this?" Larabee looked steadily at Throop.

The man twisted a little uncomfortably and then met the doctor's eyes.

"I've been thinkin' she knows there's somethin' wrong," he said. Then his face began to change. It took on the old look of haunted terror. "There is somethin' wrong," he repeated. "Look how the man came the night we lost the children and now again to-night. I thank you for listenin' Doctor, but I've got to be goin'."

"Go ahead," said Larabee as he rose with Throop and slapped him on the shoulder. "Go home and tell her about it," he counseled. "She would rather know the worst thing you could tell her than sit and worry over some secret that she thinks you are covering up. Go home and tell her, and that I say it's a case of nerves."

"I'll do it if you say so, but I was tryin' to save her," Dennis said humbly. Then he turned to grasp the doctor's hand, and his voice became husky. "I'll not be savin' her long any more, I'm thinkin', Doctor."

Dr. Larabee shook his head and wrung Dennis's hand.

"I'll be down in the morning to see you both. There 's nothing you need as much as sleep, Dennis. Tell Agnes not to get out of bed until I 've given her an examination. And good night."

Dennis walked rather heavily down the hall. His shoulders, with their pathetic stoop, and his head with its watchful, bent alertness, were full of tragedy.

At the door he turned in a kind of shamefaced fashion toward the doctor. "I'm likely to go walkin' down home with my friend I 'm thinkin' since he 's left the track and got in the habit of comin' into houses. He 's gettin' awful' fond of me."

Larabee laughed, and liked Dennis the better for his brave attempt at flippancy; but under the words was a poignant fear of the lonely walk home, and before Throop could stop him, the doctor had swung the door shut and was locking it.

"I'll come along a way," he said. "It's a great night, now the wind is dying down. I think it's clearing."

Throop looked at his friend with dumb devotion in his eyes, but he said nothing to indicate that he knew the reason for his coming. After they had swung along in silence for a while the spell of the great quiet spaces fell upon them and they each found it easier to shake off the depression that the evening had brought. Dennis talked a little, with the easy disjointedness of a man who knows his friend well enough to think aloud, speaking of his ambition to have a city run sometime, of what he would have done for the children if they might have been spared, and then, quietly, of the things that Agnes wanted in the city the next time the doctor went down.

"You could send them back if you would," he said.

"I'll take you with me, instead. I want to take you down, anyway. It seems to me that it would n't do any harm for you to have your eyes examined, and your teeth counted, and so forth. I have quite a little program ahead for you, Dennis."

"Is that so, now? Well, it's not Dennis you'll get in your medical clutches if he knows it first."

"We'll see, we 'll see," declared the doctor. "There's the light in your little house. Jump ahead, man, and I'll climb back over the hill while you 're going down the glen."

Nothing warned the doctor to go the whole distance with Dennis and look in on Agnes once more that day. He did decide to call on the village doctor in the morning and go over the case with him, perhaps planning for her future care. The condition of Dennis himself was on his mind strangely when he tried to sleep. Were Throop a drinking man the appearance of his visitor might be attributed to whisky, but this and drugs Larabee could absolutely rule out of his calculations. Dementia præcox seemed quite possible, specially of the paranoiac type, as might be suggested by the grudge he bore Watters, and by the feeling that Watters was persecuting him, and yet in the short interview he had had, he could find no deterioration or splitting of personality. It was a difficult diagnosis, and he decided, as he turned his hot pillow, that he would take the case to his friend, Lowery Lawson, the psychiatrist, before pinning such hopeless condition to Dennis. Perhaps it was only a case of nerves. Poor Dennis needed sleep and rest from worry and a change of scene, for the country that Agnes loved had never appealed to mountain-bred Dennis as much as the hurrying, noisy, prosperous city. It was possible that the lonely beauty of the hills through which Dennis had taken each day his tortuous run had made his nerves more jumpy than would a clangorous city route. Perhaps if anything happened to Agnes, for so lamely do we speculate in regard to the inevitable,-perhaps, the doctor thought, a position in the city could be found. Clangorous city streets, not so much rushing windthe wind began to sound like rain; lucky Dennis left for home when he did.

a

The next morning he slept deeply, and waked struggling to put together the memory of a dream that his subconscious self had concocted when the whistle of the seven o'clock Mirro Lake trolley shrilled across the glen. It was not many hours later that Larabee came down to the valley to leave the key of the lodge for the day. He was thinking of the possibility of planning a trip to the city for Dennis for the next

day. At the entrance to the ravine he met the village doctor and another man going away, and the doctor told him that Agnes had died very suddenly from a hemorrhage the night before. There had been only time to call Father O'Neal, but no one could go up to the lodge.

Dennis was sitting quietly outside the door of the ramshackle little house. The valley was unusually beautiful that day. The stream, filled by the recent rain, was shouting as it leaped down the side of Castle Mountain, and the little spring by which Agnes had liked to sit was full of life and sunshine. Pouring over the rocky shelf below a tiny waterfall, sprang a pale green mass of bladder fern darkened with flying spray. At Dennis's very feet brave clusters of Agnes's glowing may-pinks held up their faces to the sun, and overhead a yellow goldfinch gave its plaintive call. From the deepest pines came the thin, tremulous whistle of the linnet, and the tamaracks were like lace against the sky.

Dennis put his hand out to his friend, but he seemed to shrink from him at the same time. Larabee sat down beside him on the low stone step.

"I should have let you come home as you wanted to," he said simply, for he knew what was in the man's mind.

"I got here in time," Dennis said slowly after a pause, which the goldfinch had filled with song. "I know she was glad I went up there to see you. I told her the whole thing before she died."

"I'm glad of that, Dennis." For the life of him Jack Larabee could not shake off the strange baffled sense of contending against something beyond his comprehension. The beauty of the valley and the presence of death were both almost unreal beside this power that was slowly, but inexorably, getting its hold upon Dennis. Of course it was only a coincidence that the blue workman should have been seen at the lodge the night that Agnes died, but Larabee knew that it was no coincidence in Throop's mind that he sat there trying to make believe that the only real things were the things which other people saw and heard.