Unable to recover balance and to check his own momentum.  Brice scrambled awkwardly forward.  One stamping heel landed full on the fallen meerschaum, flattening and crumbling the beautiful pipe into a smear of shapeless clay-fragments.

At the sight.  Milo Standish swore loudly and came charging forward in a belated hope of saving his beloved pipe from destruction.  The purchase of that meerschaum had been a joy to Milo.  Its coloring had been a long and careful process.  And now, this bungler had smashed it into nothingness!

Down on hands and knees went the big man, fumbling at the fragments.  Claire, knowing how her brother valued the pipe, ran to his side in eager sympathy.

Gavin Brice came to a sliding standstill against a heavy hall-table.  On this he leaned heavily for a moment or so above the tobacco jar he had so luckily salvaged from the wreckage.  His back to the preoccupied couple he flashed his sensitive fingers into the jar, collecting and thrusting into his pockets the watch and the thick roll of bills and as much of the small change as his fast-groping fingertips could locate.

By the time Milo looked up in impotent wrath from his inspection of the ruined meerschaum.  Gavin had turned toward him and was babbling a torrent of apology for his own awkwardness.  Milo was glumly silent as the contrite words beat about his ears.  But Claire, shamed by her brother’s ungraciousness, spoke up courteously to relieve the visitor’s dire embarrassment.

“Please don’t be unhappy about it.  Mr. Brice,” she begged.  “It was just an accident.  It couldn’t be helped.  I’m sure my brother—­”

“But—­” stammered Gavin.

“Oh, it’s all right!” grumbled Milo. scooping up the handful of crushed meerschaum.  “Let it go at that.  I—­”

Again. the mocking bird notes fluted forth through the early evening silences, the melody coming as before from the direction of the grove’s hidden path.  Milo stopped short in his sulky speech.  Brother and sister exchanged a swift glance.  Then Standish got to his feet and approached Gavin.

“Here we’ve kept you up and around when you’re still too weak to move without help!” he said in very badly done geniality.  “Take my arm and I’ll help you upstairs.  Your room’s all ready for you.  If you’d rather I can carry you.  How about it?”

But a perverse imp of mischief entered Gavin Brice’s aching head.

“I’m all right now,” he protested.  “I feel fifty per cent better.  I’d much rather stay down here with you and Miss Standish for a while, if you don’t mind.  My nerves are a bit jumpy from that crack over the skull, and I’d like them to quiet down before I go to bed.”

Again. he was aware of that look of covert anxiety. between sister and brother.  Claire’s big eyes strayed involuntarily toward the front door.  And her lips parted for some word of urgence.  But before she could speak.  Milo laughed loudly and caught Gavin by the arm.