was littered with the tobacco he had scattered.  His gaudy riding blouse and cap reposed on a lounge in one corner.  His ulster and hat, which he had unpacked the last thing before retiring, lay across a chair.  Look where one might about the place, there were evidences of his presence, of his dominant inhabitance.  Already after two days’ residence, as Howard had said, he had taken complete possession.  Whosoever may have possessed the voice of authority in the past, concerning the future there was to be no doubt.  That voice was speaking now.

“To be sure I shall take him East,” it said.  “His father is buried in Boston, and his grandfather, and his grandfather’s father.”  The voice halted, lowered.  “Besides, my mother and his other sister, who died years and years ago, are both there.”  Obviously, too obviously, he turned away until his face was hid.  Into the voice there crept a throb that was almost convincing.  “They’d all want him with them, I’m sure, even though he wouldn’t have cared; and I think he would.  He mentioned it the first night I came, but of course I didn’t realise—­then—­” The voice was silent.

As hours before in the room above, Mary Landor showed no emotion, did not speak.  Not even yet had her sorrow-numbed brain awakened, had she grasped the full meaning of the thing which had happened to her.  Later, indefinitely later, the knowledge would come, and with it the hour of reckoning; but for the present she was a mere puppet in the play.  Craig, the dominant, had told her to dress, and she had dressed.  He had summoned her to the council, and she had obeyed.  But it was not to her now that he had spoken, nor to the other man who, silent as he had entered, stood erect, his arms folded, listening.  To yet another he had spoken.  She it was, Elizabeth, who answered.

“But to take him clear back there, away from everyone who cares for him or ever has cared for him.”  The soft lower lip was becoming unmanageable and the girl halted, winking hard.  “It seems cruel.”

“Not if he would have wished it, Bess.”

“But if he hadn’t wished it—­”

“I repeat I think he would.”  Craig shifted until his back was toward the other man.  “I think that his mentioning the possibility at all, the first night I came, proves that he wished it.”

“Perhaps....  I don’t know.” ...  A long pause; then of a sudden the girl arose and walked to the window.  But subterfuge was from her a thing apart, and she merely leaned her face against the casement.  “I can’t bear to think of it,” she trembled.

Craig moved half way toward her; then remembered, and halted.

“Yes, let’s decide, and not talk about it,” he returned swiftly.  “You agree with me after all, don’t you, Bess?”

The girl did not look up.

“Don’t ask me.  You and How and Aunt Mary decide.”  With an effort she resumed her former place; but even yet she did not glance at him.  “Wherever you take him I shall go along, is all.”