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"I am going to hear an account of how you behaved yourself on the

voyage, Code," she said, attempting severity.

"By an eye-witness?" Visions of Ellinwood, painfully arrayed,

danced in his head.

"Yes."

"Um-m. Well, I won't be home until late, then, because it's a

long story."

"You rascal!" said his mother, and kissed him.

On the way to Mallaby House (it was up the old familiar path that

he had raced down so recklessly the night of the great fire), he

thought over the thing that his eyes had seen for an instant the

night before in the jail.

Elsa loved him, he knew now, and she had always loved him. He

cursed himself for a stupid fool in that it had taken him so long

to find out, but he was relieved to know at last upon what

footing to meet her. She was no longer a baffling and alluring

creature of a hundred chameleon moods; she was a lonely girl.