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much haste and shut the door. And she said in her normal voice, "Why, hello, dear."

"Hello, mother," said Jock, and bent to kiss her. "What goes on, anyway? Old Home Week or something? There must be a million machines parked around."

"I'm giving a little party," replied Mrs. Hamill. She laid hands on Jock's coat and pulled him so that the porch lights fell full on him. "Look at me, rascal! Have you been expelled? Don't keep your poor mother in suspense. And where's your hat? Did you—Jock, you didn't come all the way from college on a winter night without a hat?"

Her questions amused her faintly, so inconsequent they seemed. Hat. expulsion. . . . Dear God, what did it matter why he had come, or whether or not he had come bareheaded? He was here. And the veil of twelve years' tireless weaving was about to be swept from before him in one stroke, like a cobweb attacked with a broom. . . .

"No hat a-tall," she heard him say. "I 'spose you'll quinine me till I yell for mercy——"

"I shall indeed."

"Well, you see," he explained, "I didn't know I was coming. I jumped in the roadster about eight o'clock after a run-in with a gir—with someone, and started to drive like hell, and the first thing I knew I was a good fifty miles on my way here. So I came along the rest of the way." He hugged her close impulsively. "I wanted to talk to you anyway. I'm all tied up in the confoundest knot you ever heard of, and it's up to you to help me unravel. Say, let's go in, shall we? Here we stand like a couple of night watchmen——"

"No, wait!" cried Mrs. Hamill. And then, as Jock