"Well, it's half past now; so you'd both better come and say good-night."

With one foot resting on the turf and the other raised to the first step
of the terrace, as he stood with folded arms, Ford watched the little
scene, in which the children closed their book, pushed back their chairs,
and crossed the room to say good-night to the two who were seated in the
shadow. The boy came first, with hands thrust into his trousers pockets in
a kind of grave nonchalance. The little girl fluttered along behind, but
broke her journey across the room by stepping into the opening of the long
window and looking out into the night. Ford stood breathless and
motionless, expecting her to see him and cry out. But she turned away and
danced again into the shadow, after which he saw her no more. The silence
that fell within the room told him that the elders were left alone.

Stealthily, like a thief, Ford crept up the steps and over the turf of the
terrace. The rising of the wind at that minute drowned all sound of his
movements, so that he was tempted right on to the veranda, where a coarse
matting deadened his tread. He dared not hold himself upright on this
dangerous ground, but, crouching low, he was blotted from sight, while he
himself could see what passed within. He would only, he said, look once
more into kindly human faces and steal away as he came.

He could perceive now that the lady who had spoken was an invalid
reclining in a long chair, lightly covered with a rug. A fragile, dainty
little creature, her laces, trinkets, and rings revealed her as one
clinging to the elegancies of another phase of life, though Fate had sent
her to live, and perhaps to die, here on the edge of the wilderness. He
made the same observation with regard to the man who sat with his back to
the window. He was in informal evening dress--a circumstance that, in this