But within the present month the New Yorker's credulity and his "loans" had ceased to be material assets.
Then Bennie D., face to face with the need of funds, remembered his sister and the promise given his dead brother that he should be provided with a home as long as she had one.
He journeyed to Cape Ann and found, to his dismay, that she was no longer there.

After some skillful detective work, he learned of the Eastboro engagement and wrote the letter--a piteous, appealing letter, full of brotherly love and homesickness--which, held back by the storm, reached Mrs.Bascom only that morning.

In it he stated that he was on his way to her and was counting the minutes until they should be together once more.

And he had, as soon after his arrival in the village as possible, 'phoned to the Lights and spoken with her.

Her tone, as she answered, was, he thought, alarmingly cold.