As he went toward the house he looked back across the waters of the bay.
Yet another sail, with the sun upon it, was fading slowly into the
distant haze.




CHAPTER I

THE MAN BY THE ROADSIDE


A solemn twilight, heavy and oppressive, was closing a dull, slumberous
day. It was late in the year for such weather. Not a breath stirred in
the trees by the roadside, not a movement in hedge or ditch; some plague
might have swept across the land, leaving it stricken and desolate, even
the cottages here and there showed no lights and appeared to be
deserted. The road ran straight between ill-conditioned and neglected
fields, and for an hour or more no traveler had passed this way, yet it
was a high road, and at a few miles distance was Paris. Yonder toward
the northeast lay the city, the twilight heavy over it too, but it was
not silent. The throb of human passion and anger beat in it with quick,
hammering strokes, and men and women, looking into one another's eyes,
either laughed while they sang and danced madly, or shrank away, afraid
of being seen, fearing to ask questions.

The twilight had grown deeper, and the horizon was narrowing quickly
with the coming of night, when the sound of horses' hoofs broke the
silence and two riders came rapidly round a bend into the long stretch