Neither spoke.
"Carl," choked Wherry at last, meeting the other's eyes with a glance of wild imploring, "so help me God, I'll run straight.

You know that ?" "Yes," said Carl truthfully, "I know it." An interval of desperate silence, then: "I--I can't thank you, old man, I--I'd like to but--" "No," said Carl.

"I wish you wouldn't." And Wherry, wildly wringing his hand for the last time, was off to the sleigh waiting in the lane, a lean, quivering lad with blazing eyes of gratitude and a great choke in his throat as he waved at Carl, who smiled back at him with lazy reassurance through the smoke of a cigarette.
Carl's day was restless and very lonely.

By midnight he was drinking heavily, having accepted the tray this time and dismissed Kronberg for the night.

Though the snow had abated some the night before, and ceased in the morning, it was again whirling outside in the lane with the wild abandon of a Bacchante.