“You go back to the red house and go to bed, and I’ll round up Eggs.  I think I know how the trick can be done.”

Aleck was stubborn about accompanying Chamberlain, but the Englishman plainly wouldn’t have it.  He told Aleck he could do it better alone, and led him by the arm back to the old red house, where the kitchen door stood hospitably open.  Sallie was at work in her pantry.  The kettle was singing on the stove, and the milk had already come from a neighbor’s dairy.

Sallie’s temper may not have been ideal, but at least she was not of those who are grouchy before breakfast.  She served Aleck and Chamberlain in the kitchen with homely skill, giving them both a wholesome and pleasant morning after their night of gloom.

“You can’t do anything right all day if you start behindhand,” she replied when Aleck remarked upon her early rising.  “Besides, I was up last night more than once, watching for Miss Redmond.  The young man’s sleeping nicely, she says.”

She went cheerfully about her kitchen work, giving the men her best, womanlike, and asking nothing in return, not even attention.  They took her service gratefully, however, and there was enough of Eve in Sallie to know it.

“By the way, Chamberlain,” said Aleck, “we must get a telegram off to the family in Lynn.”  He wrote out the address and shoved it across Sallie’s red kitchen tablecloth.  “And tell them not to think of coming!” adjured Aleck.  “We don’t want any more of a swarry here than we’ve got now.”  Chamberlain undertook to send the message; and since he had contracted to catch the criminal of the Jeanne D’Arc, he was eager to be off on his hunt.

“Good-by, old man.  You go to bed and get a good sleep.  I’ll stop at the hotel and leave word for Miss Reynier.  And you stay here, so I’ll know where you are.  I may want to find you quick, if I land that bloomin’ beggar.”

“Thanks,” said Aleck weakly.  “I’ll turn in for an hour or so, if Sallie can find me a bed.”

Mr. Chamberlain made several notes on an envelope which he pulled from his pocket, gravely thanked Sallie for her breakfast and lifted his hat to her when he departed.  Aleck dropped into a chair and was stupidly staring at the stove when Sallie returned from a journey to the pump in the yard.

“You’ll like to take a little rest, Mr. Van Camp,” she said, “and I know just the place where you’ll not hear a sound from anywhere—­if you don’t mind there not being a carpet.  I’ll go up right away and show you the room before I knead out my bread.”  So she conducted Aleck to a big, clean attic under the rafters, remote and quiet.  He was exhausted, not from lack of sleep—­he had often borne many hours of wakefulness and hard work without turning a hair—­but from the jarring of a live nerve throughout the night of anxiety.  The past, and the relationships of youth and kindred were sacred to him, and his pain had overshadowed, for the hour at least, even the newer claims of his love for Melanie Reynier.