CHAPTER XXXV.
At eight o'clock Mary had gone to Helen's.
"If I'm not back at ten, I sha'n't be home tonight," she had told Hutchins as she left the house.
At half past eight Archey called, full of the topic which had been started that afternoon.

Hutchins told him what Mary had said.
"All right," he said.

"I'll wait." He left his car under the porte cochere, and went upstairs to chat with Miss Cordelia and Miss Patty.
At twenty to ten, Hutchins was looking through the hall window up the drive when he saw a figure running toward the house.

The door-bell rang--a loud, insistent peal.
Hutchins opened the door and saw a man standing there, shabby and spattered with mud.
"Is Miss Spencer in ?" "No; she's out." The hall light shone on the visitor's face and he stared hard at the butler.

"Hutch," he said in a quieter voice, "don't you remember me ?" "N-n-no, sir; I think not, sir," said the other--and he, too, began to stare.
"Don't you remember the day I fell out of the winesap tree, and you carried me in, and the next week I tried to climb on top of that hall clock, and knocked it over, and you tried to catch it, and it knocked you over, too ?" The butler's lips moved, but at first he couldn't speak.
"Is it you, Master Paul ?" he whispered at last, as though he were seeing a visitor from the other world.