At last, feeling sure that he had walked for more than a mile, he halted and looked back. The act of turning brought immediate relief, first because it put his back to the wind, and then because, far down the road, it showed him the gleam of a lantern. A sleigh was coming—a sleigh that might perhaps give him a lift to the village! Fortified by the hope, he began to walk back toward the light. It came forward very slowly, with unaccountable sigsags and waverings; and even when he was within a few yards of it he could catch no sound of sleigh-bells. Then it paused and became stationary by the roadside, as though carried by a pedestrian who had stopped, exhausted by the cold. The thought made Faxon hasten on, and a moment later he was stooping over a motionless figure huddled against the snow-bank. The lantern had dropped from its bearer’s hand, and Faxon, fearfully raising it, threw its light into the face of Frank Rainer.
“Rainer! What on earth are you doing here?”
The boy smiled back through his pallour. “What are you, I’d like to know?” he retorted; and, scrambling to his feet with a clutch oh Faxon’s arm, he added gaily: “Well, I’ve run you down!”
Faxon stood confounded, his heart sinking. The lad’s face was grey.
“What madness—” he began.
“Yes, it is. What on earth did you do it for?”
“I? Do what?... Why I.... I was just taking a walk.... I often walk at night....”
Frank Rainer burst into a laugh. “On such nights? Then you hadn’t bolted?”
“Bolted?”
“Because I’d done something to offend you? My uncle thought you had.”