at him half-pleadingly, half-luringly, and lips parted, as if about to
speak to him. He stared, moveless in his astonishment, and in another
breath the face was gone.

With a hurried exclamation he ran across the empty room to the door and
looked down the starlit street. To go from the window to the door took
him but a few seconds, yet he found the street deserted--deserted except
for a solitary figure three blocks away and a dog that growled at him
as he thrust out his head and shoulders. He heard no sound of footsteps,
no opening or closing of a door. Only there came to him that faint,
hissing music of the northern skies, and once more, from the black
forest beyond the Saskatchewan, the infinite sadness of the wolf-howl.




CHAPTER II


LIPS THAT SPEAK NOT

Howland was not a man easily susceptible to a pair of eyes and a pretty
face. The practical side of his nature was too much absorbed in its
devices and schemes for the building of material things to allow the
breaking in of romance. At least Howland had always complimented himself
on this fact, and he laughed a little nervously as he went back to his
seat near the window. He was conscious that a flush of unusual
excitement had leaped into his cheeks and already the practical side of
him was ashamed of that to which the romantic side had surrendered.