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music in the big library by the fire, and then the careless, familiar good night, half touched with the comradeship of the day. It had been an unusual day for the Scientist, and he lay long on his pillow, awake, looking into the night and thinking of it and of brown-winged eyes; and when at last he fell into slumber, the soft pad, pad of hurrying feet broke upon it and half waked him, and lulled him again, till he caught the rhythm and was off upon it; and beside him coursed a swift figure, and beyond her thudded the great dog. And the eyes that turned to him, as they sped, and looked into his were clear and sweet.

When the Scientist woke in the morning he was aware of a sudden pang. He opened his eyes and looked blankly at the row of specimens ranged neatly along the wall. Then, in a flash, it came to him. He had seen the Scarberus. He had been close upon it. He had all but touched it. He rose and dressed, harsh thoughts in his heart. He had missed the Scarberus by an inch. He had wasted a day in Browning and nonsense. To-day he would work. If he went outside the house, no woman should bear him company.

Two hours later, as the Scientist was bending over his microscope, the door opened softly, and a small brown hand stole in. It held a square green box. He looked at it inquiringly.

"There are two," she said, "one to cut up and one for a specimen. And I never want to see them again!"

The door closed behind her.

VI

Now was the time when the Scientist should have gone away. He had accomplished that for which he came. He had his Scarberus—two of them, carefully mounted. There was no reason why he should stay on; but he stayed.

Mrs. Tryon beamed upon him and mothered him and consulted him about her investments, with regard to which the Scientist gave her some remarkable advice. Ethelberta played to him, and read Browning and Meredith, and walked with him in the great woods. Of Henrietta he saw nothing. She had disappeared—gone into camp in the woods farther up, her mother explained. She often did this when the freak took her. Old John, the forester, had made her a camp not a stone's throw from his own, and she came and went as she pleased. Old John, who had had the care of the woods for twenty-five years, kept faithful guard over her. Henrietta had trotted at his heels as a child, and all the wood-lore she knew he had taught her. And then, too, she had Buff. Nothing could hurt her with Buff to protect her. Mrs. Tryon explained these unconventional details a little anxiously. The Scientist might think her remiss in letting Henrietta camp alone in the woods. He smiled, and wondered when she was coming back.

"We never know," replied his hostess. "She may return to-morrow, and she may be gone several days. Old John keeps me informed that she is safe, and looks after her provisions. But she does n't like to be fussed about. Now, Ethelberta is so different." She sighed a little and smiled anxiously at the Scientist; and the Scientist smiled back and rubbed his glasses, and stayed on.

Sometimes when he walked alone in the woods he would pause for a moment and listen, with bent head, to a sound that came to him on the wind—a sound of swift feet that died away with the wind in the pines. And once, in the evening, when he was playing in the half-lighted room, he stepped to the window, the violin still under his chin, and looked out into the night. But there was only flickering darkness and the branches of the forest beckoning to him.

So the days drifted by, filled with music and moth-lit eyes and poetry, and a sense of home such as the Scientist had never known. And each night as he went to bed he vowed to himself that the morrow should see an end of it. But when the morning came, a curious thing had happened to him, and the Scientist stayed on.

For in the hours of sleep a spell was wrought upon him, and out of the bounds of time and space he was swept into a new world. He never knew how it began or when the sense of reality overtook him. But suddenly he was there—in that other world. He rubbed his eyes and looked about him and waited, holding his breath. A branch quivered a little at the right, then another, or the wind stirred among them till they shook with laughter. Then they opened, and she stood there, smiling at him with frank eyes. "Down, Buff!" she said softly as she walked across the