to a pace set by a mighty conflict. Never again would Jean McKenzie
laugh or cry over little things. She would laugh and cry, of course,
but back of it all would be that sense of the world's travail and
tragedy, made personal by her own part in it.

Julia, the second maid, was instructed to show Mr. Drake into the
little drawing room. Jean came down early with her knitting, and sat
on the deep-rose Davenport. The curtains were not drawn. There was
always the chance of a sunset view. Julia was to turn on the light
when she brought in the tea.

There was the whir of a bell, the murmur of voices. Jean sat tense.
Then as her caller entered, she got somewhat shakily on her feet.

But the man in the door was not Derry Drake!

In his intrusive and impertinent green, pinched-in as to waist, and
puffed-out as to trousers, his cheeks red with the cold, his brown eyes
bright with eagerness, Ralph Witherspoon stood on the threshold.

"Of all the good luck," he said, "to find you in."

She shook hands with him and sat down.

"I thought you had gone back to Bay Shore. You said yesterday you were
going."

"I got my orders in the nick of time. We are to go to Key West. I am
to join the others on the way down."