cold. I am not responsible for what they do. Only I must my old
affection prove." So he sighed again and turned softly to his bed.

But as he turned the Master stood before him and took him by the
throat.

"Traitor!" he cried. "You would betray the innocent. Already your
soul is stained with my sleeping children's blood." And with his
hands he choked the false Guest to death.

Then he shot the bolt of the side door, and barred the window, and
called the servants, and made ready to defend the house.

Great was the fighting that night. In the morning, when the robbers
were driven off, the false Guest was buried, outside the garden,
in an unmarked grave.

February 2, 1918.






JUSTICE OF THE ELEMENTS