Yet, if she had, she would have deemed the trouble worth while.

For John Ellery stumbled on through the mist till he reached the "Corners" where the store was located and the roads forked.

There, he turned to the right, into the way called locally "Hammond's Turn-off." A short distance down the "Turn-off" stood a small, brown-shingled building, its windows alight.

Opposite its door, on the other side of the road, grew a spreading hornbeam tree surrounded by a cluster of swamp blackberry bushes.

In the black shadow of the hornbeam Mr.Ellery stood still.