And then he wrote swiftly and handed the card back to her to pin on the stocking.

“Now, where do we go from here?”

Daryl gave a real genuine little laugh and led the way to the fireplace where four other stockings of various lengths and sizes swayed gracefully in the firelight.

Daryl instructed him how to hang it by the loop, and he made great ceremony of the act, patting it as it hung long and limp at the end of the row.

“There, little stocking, hang still and don’t be filled with great expectations. You know you only belong to a substitute guest and can’t expect much, an apple or a few grains of corn perhaps, but don’t let your fancy fly to toy horses and soldiers and that sort of thing. We weren’t expected, you know, and therefore aren’t in the running. I’ll maybe steal in here when Santa is gone and stuff you out with a newspaper I have in my suitcase so you’ll look like the others, but don’t let on it’s a newspaper. You’ve got to be polite, for it’s very nice of them to let us spend Christmas with them at all, you understand. Now good night, and mind you be a good stocking till I come back to get you in the morning.”

They shouted with laughter over his comical tone, and then they hurried the weary young men away to their rest, with injunctions not to wake up in the morning until they really felt rested and ready.

So Mother Devereaux went to perform a last little rite or two over the turkey, Father to make sure the hens and Chrystobel were really comfortable in the barn, and the girls went laughing up to Daryl’s room where they were sleeping together tonight. And the storm raged on, white, white, white, everywhere deep and drifting.

Alan found a bright fire burning in the fireplace, and a nice hot water bag in his bed under the covers. Gratefully he climbed into the warm flannel pajamas he found laid out on the bed, not even considering his own fine silk ones in the suitcase, and got into the big soft bed that smelled of lavender and was plentifully supplied with blankets. He lay there looking happily out at the wide comfortable room in the flickering firelight, thinking what the other fellow whose place he was taking had missed, and why he was willing to miss it; wondering if he wouldn’t turn up in the morning and spoil it all; wondering if the girl with the lovely eyes really cared so very much; trying to recall her shocked voice earlier in the afternoon as she answered the telephone.

Then sweet drowsiness stole over him, and he fancied he was out somewhere in the storm again, battling his way to this lovely quiet haven, where Christmas was real, nothing seemed hard or artificial, and God still reigned in His heaven.

Chapter 8

Demeter Cass was clever. She should have been a detective. And she never gave up until she got what she wanted.

However, her operations with regard to Alan Monteith were somewhat interrupted by the arrival of her hosts and an influx of guests, which necessitated dressing for dinner. It was half past nine when dinner was over, and then there was dancing and several new men whom she wanted to try out, and it was not until after midnight that she remembered that she had not yet got in touch with Alan, and that he had not arrived or telephoned.

They had danced the Christmas in with an odd, barbaric sort of dance, having costumed themselves in red with jingling bells and grotesque masks, though many of them didn’t need those, having quite artificial ones of their own. They had danced with their right arms curved over their heads, shaking little carved ivory rattles with tiny silver bells, and had sung “Good King Wenceslas” and the few other Christmas songs they could remember. They had ushered the day in with a riot, by drinking more than usual. And suddenly Demeter felt that it was time to do something more about Alan.

Carefully she questioned the servants to find if he had telephoned or arrived quietly, but found he had not, so she went to the telephone again.

It mattered not to her that it was long past one o’clock and that she knew the house to which she was telephoning had serious illness. Nothing ever mattered to Demeter except what she personally wanted, so she put in her call.

She got the whole Farley-Watt household out of bed, servants and householders, and disturbed the nurse and even the patient, who woke suddenly and cried out to know what was the matter. And then questioning the frightened old man, who had feared he didn’t know what when he heard that shrill ring in the middle of the night, she demanded to know why Mr. Alan Monteith had not called her.

Mr. Watt was too bewildered and weary at first to get it all straight and find out what she wanted, but when she finally made him understand he admitted that Mr. Monteith had come and that he didn’t believe anybody had remembered to tell him the message that she had left several times earlier in the afternoon.

Demeter Cass minced no words in telling him what she thought of that, and paid no heed to his dignified explanation that his wife was seriously ill, and that their anxiety was such that they hadn’t remembered anything else. She went on to demand that Alan come to the telephone at once, and when she was told he wasn’t there, had been gone several hours, she declaimed over that. What were they thinking of to let him go out in such a storm? And where did he go? Where was he now? She must get in touch with him at once. It was a most important matter! She made it appear that it might be even a matter of life and death.

“I am sorry,” said the old man. “We tried to keep the young men all night, but they refused to stay. They seemed to be anxious to get away at once. We loaned them snowshoes—”

“Well, where were they going?” demanded Demeter.

“Well, I can’t exactly say,” he answered thoughtfully. “I assumed that they were going to the home of the other young man.”

“What other young man? What was his name? Where did he live?”

“If you will excuse me a minute I will get the address,” answered Mr. Watt. “I took both of their names and addresses. They were most kind to us in our distress, coming so far in the storm, leaving their own affairs—”

Demeter cut him short.

“Hurry, won’t you! I can’t wait here all night!” she snapped sharply.