"No, I didn't think he was in that class," she replied, quickly.
"But what surprised me was her interest in things. She is a pretty,
refined, young-looking woman, with gray hair. When I was leaving I
turned back to ask about some eggs for Saturday. She thought I was gone,
and she had dropped her head on the table and was crying, so I slipped
out without her knowing." Dennie's gray eyes were full of tears now.
"Dr. Fenneben, if talking about Sunrise made her do that, maybe you might
do something for her. I pity her so. Nobody seems to care about her.
My father is set against her when he is not responsible, and he might--"
She stopped abruptly and did not finish the sentence.

The Dean looked out of the window at the purple mist melting along
the horizon line. Down in the valley pigeons were circling above
a wooded spot at a bend in the Walnut River. Fenneben remembered
now that he had seen them there many times. He had a boyhood memory
of a country home with pigeons flying about it.

"I wish, too, that I might do something," he said at last.
"You say she will not let men inside her gate now.
I'll keep her in mind, though. The gate may open some time."

It was mid-afternoon when Lloyd Fenneben left his study for a stroll.
As he approached the Saxon House, he saw old Bond Saxon slipping out
of the side gate and with uncertain steps skulk down the alley.

"Poor old sinner! What a slave and a fool whisky can make of a man!"
he thought. Then he remembered Dennie's anxiety of the morning.
"There must be some cause for his prejudice against this strange
hermit woman when he is drunk. Bond Saxon is not a man to hate
anybody when he is sober."