As he talked, half incoherently, to the delighted collie, Gavin was retracing his way over the mile or so he had just traversed.  He grudged the extra steps.  For the day had been long and full of exercise.  And he was more than comfortably tired.  But he kept on, wondering vexedly at the little throb of eagerness in his heart as Claire Standish’s home at last bulked dimly into view around the last curve of the byroad.

Bobby Burns trotted happily beside him, reveling in the man’s occasional rambling words, as is the flattering way collies have when they are talked to, familiarly, by the human they love.  And so the two neared the house, their padding footsteps noiseless in the soft white dust of the road.

There were lights in several windows.  One strong ray was cast full across the side lawn, penetrating almost as far as the beginning of the forest at the rear.  Toward this vivid beam, Gavin bent his steps, fumbling in his pocket as he went, for something with which to tie Bobby to the nearest tree.

As he moved forward and left the road for the closecropped grass of the lawn, he saw a dim white shadow advancing obliquely in his direction.  And, for an instant, his heartbeats quickened, ever so slightly.  Then, he was disgusted with his own fatuousness.  For the white form was double the size of Claire Standish.  And he knew this was her brother, crossing from the garage to a door of the house.

The big man swung along with the easy gait of perfect physical strength.  And as the window, whence flowed the light-ray, was alongside the door he intended to enter, his journey toward the house lay in the direct path of the ray.

Brice, in the darkness, just inside the gateway, stood moveless and waited for him to traverse the hundred feet or so that remained between him and the veranda.  The collie fidgeted, at sight of the man in white, and began to growl, inquiringly, far down in his throat.

Gavin patted Bobby Burns reassuringly on the head, to quiet him.  He was of no mind to introduce himself at the Standish home, a second time, as the returner of a runaway dog.  Wherefore, he sought to remain unseen, and to wait with what patience he could until the householder should have gone indoors.

Apparently, on reaching home, Standish had driven the car to the garage and had pottered around there for some minutes before starting for the house.  He was carrying something loosely in one hand, and he did not seem in any hurry.

“My friend,” said Gavin, soundlessly, “if a girl like Claire Standish was waiting for me, beyond, that shaft of light, I’d make the trip in something better than no time at all.  But then—­she’s not my sister, thank the good Lord!”

He grinned at his own silly thoughts concerning the girl he had talked to for so brief a time.  Yet he found himself looking at her elder brother with a certain reluctant friendliness, on her account.