with the lamp at my side, and tore open the note and read it.

"Dear Mark. Please come to me."

That was all she said. It was enough. It was all I wanted in the
world.

Once I had been disappointed, but now there was no mistaking it.
Upside down, backward and forward I read it, right side up and
criss-cross, rubbing my eyes a half a hundred times, but there was her
appeal--no question of it. After all, all was well. And when Mary
calls I must go, even if I have crossed two mountains and am
supperless. All the bitterness had gone. All those days of brooding
were forgotten, for I could go again up the road, my white road, to the
hill, and the light there would burn for me.

Then Tim came!

[Illustration: Then Tim came.]

I was still sitting on the floor when he came, reading the note over
and over, with the lamp beside me.

With Captain and Colonel at his heels he burst in upon me.

"Well, Mark, you scoundrel," he cried, laughing, as he caught me by the
arm and lifted me up. "Where have you been?"

"Travelling," I answered grimly. "And you--what are you doing here?"