One was from Ann Sherrill jogging his memory about a promise
to come to Palm Beach in January, the other from Aunt Agatha, whose
trip to her cousin's in Indiana Carl had encouraged with a great flood
of relief, for it had made possible this nine weeks with Wherry at the
Glade Farm.
Two steps at a time, Wherry bounded up to his room. When he returned
he was in better spirits than he had been for months.
"Come on, Carl," he exclaimed boyishly. "I'll walk down any gale
to-night. And Allan says we're in for a blizzard."
Breasting the biting gale, the two men swung out through the snowy lane
to the roadway.
Carl watched his companion in silence. It was a test--this wind--to
see how much of a man had been made from the flabby, drunken wreck he
had dragged to the Glade Farm weeks ago with a masterful command. It
had been a bitter fight, with days of heavy sullenness on Wherry's part
and swift apology when the mood was gone, days of hard riding and
walking, of icy plunges after a racking grind of exercise for which
Carl himself with his splendid strength inexorably set the pace, days
of fierce rebellion when he had calmly thrashed his suffering young
guest into submission and locked him in his room, days of horrible
choking remorse and pleading when Carl had grimly turned away from the
pitiful wreck Starrett had made of his clever young secretary.
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