After his father left Grey's Park, he had sat a few minutes with his
mother and aunt, and then, complaining of a headache, had asked to be
excused, and gone to his room, which was at the head of some stairs
leading down into a narrow hall and out into the side yard. When the boy
entered his chamber, he had no intention of going to the farm-house, but
as he thought of his grandfather dying, and that to-morrow might perhaps
be too late to see him alive, the wish to go there grew stronger and
stronger, until it became an impulse which he could not resist.

"Something tells me I must go," he said; "that it is needful for me to
be there, and go I shall. I am not afraid of the snow. It cannot be more
than a foot on the level. I have waded through more banks than that, and
it is only a mile from here across the fields and through the woods. I
shall not tell any one, but I am going."

And in a few moments Grey had descended the stairs, and unlocking the
outer door, locked it again, and putting the key in his pocket, started
for the farm-house, striking into a cross-road which led across the
fields, and which in summer he used often to take in preference to the
highway. It was a little nearer, and led through grassy lanes, and cool
pinewoods, and pleasant pasture lands, across a stream where he had once
built a dam, and had a little water-wheel which his grandfather made for
him.

The way, however, was anything but pleasant now, with the cold, dark
sky, the tall, leafless trees, and the drifting snow, which he found was
more than a foot deep on the level, except in the woods, where it had
not fallen so thickly. But Grey was young and fearless, and he went on
rapidly, until he reached the knoll from which the house was visible not