Wherry wrung Carl's hand, and after a passionate, incoherent storm of gratitude stumbled blindly from the room.
The old house grew very quiet. Presently to the crackle of the fire and the wild noise of the wind outside was added the soft and melancholy lilt of a flute. There was no mockery or impudence in the strain to-night. It was curiously of a piece with the creaking loneliness of the ancient farmhouse and so soft at times that the clash of the frozen branches against the house engulfed it utterly.
Sombre, swayed by a surge of deep depression, the flutist lay back in his chair by the fire, piping moodily upon the friend he always carried in his pocket. To-morrow Dick would be off to the girl in Vermont-The clock struck twelve. The rural world was wrapped in slumber. Above-stairs Dick was sleeping the sound, dreamless sleep of healthy weariness, and most likely dreaming of the girl by the brook. A cleansed body and a cleansed mind, thank God! So had he slept for nights while the inexorable master of his days, with no companion but his flute, drank and drank until dawn, climbing up to bed at cockcrow--sometimes drunk and morose, sometimes a grim and conscious master of the bottle.
Carl had been drinking wildly, heavily for months. That in flagellating Wherry's body day by day he spared not himself, was characteristic of the man and of his will. That he preached and dragged a man from the depths of hell by day and deliberately descended into infernal abysses by night, was but another revelation of the wild, inconsistent humors which tore his soul, Youth and indomitable physique gave him as yet clear eyes and muscles of iron, for all he abused them, but the humors of his soul from day to day grew blacker.
Kronberg, a new servant Carl had brought with him to the Glade for personal attendance, presently brought in his nightly tray of whiskey.
Carl glanced at the bottle and frowned.
"Take it away!" he said curtly.
Kronberg obeyed.
A little later, white and very tired, Carl went up to bed.
Dick went in the morning. At the door, after chatting nervously to cover the surge of emotion in his heart, he held out his hand. Neither spoke.
"Carl," choked Wherry at last, meeting the other's eyes with a glance of wild imploring, "so help me God, I'll run straight. You know that?"
"Yes," said Carl truthfully, "I know it."
An interval of desperate silence, then: "I--I can't thank you, old man, I--I'd like to but--"
"No," said Carl. "I wish you wouldn't."
And Wherry, wildly wringing his hand for the last time, was off to the sleigh waiting in the lane, a lean, quivering lad with blazing eyes of gratitude and a great choke in his throat as he waved at Carl, who smiled back at him with lazy reassurance through the smoke of a cigarette.