in the same tone of tender reassurance: "Let us go there now and sit
down and talk quietly." He took one of the hands that hung by her side
and pressed his lips to the palm. "Do you suppose I'm going to let you
send me away? Do you suppose I don't understand?"

The little old house--its wooden walls sun-bleached to a ghostly
gray--stood in an orchard above the road. The garden palings had fallen,
but the broken gate dangled between its posts, and the path to the house
was marked by rose-bushes run wild and hanging their small pale blossoms
above the crowding grasses. Slender pilasters and an intricate fan-light
framed the opening where the door had hung; and the door itself lay
rotting in the grass, with an old apple-tree fallen across it.

Inside, also, wind and weather had blanched everything to the same
wan silvery tint; the house was as dry and pure as the interior of a
long-empty shell. But it must have been exceptionally well built, for
the little rooms had kept something of their human aspect: the wooden
mantels with their neat classic ornaments were in place, and the corners
of one ceiling retained a light film of plaster tracery.

Harney had found an old bench at the back door and dragged it into the
house. Charity sat on it, leaning her head against the wall in a state
of drowsy lassitude. He had guessed that she was hungry and thirsty,
and had brought her some tablets of chocolate from his bicycle-bag, and
filled his drinking-cup from a spring in the orchard; and now he sat at
her feet, smoking a cigarette, and looking up at her without speaking.
Outside, the afternoon shadows were lengthening across the grass, and
through the empty window-frame that faced her she saw the Mountain
thrusting its dark mass against a sultry sunset. It was time to go.