me there. And another thing: if the series of catastrophes there
did nothing else, it taught me one thing--that somehow,
somewhere, from perhaps a half-civilized ancestor who wore a
sheepskin garment and trailed his food or his prey, I have in me
the instinct of the chase. Were I a man I should be a trapper of
criminals, trailing them as relentlessly as no doubt my sheepskin
ancestor did his wild boar. But being an unmarried woman, with
the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime will
probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my
last acquaintance with anything.

The property was owned by Paul Armstrong, the president of the
Traders' Bank, who at the time we took the house was in the west
with his wife and daughter, and a Doctor Walker, the Armstrong
family physician. Halsey knew Louise Armstrong,--had been rather
attentive to her the winter before, but as Halsey was always
attentive to somebody, I had not thought of it seriously,
although she was a charming girl. I knew of Mr. Armstrong only
through his connection with the bank, where the children's money
was largely invested, and through an ugly story about the son,
Arnold Armstrong, who was reported to have forged his father's
name, for a considerable amount, to some bank paper. However,
the story had had no interest for me.

I cleared Halsey and Gertrude away to a house party, and moved
out to Sunnyside the first of May. The roads were bad, but the
trees were in leaf, and there were still tulips in the borders
around the house. The arbutus was fragrant in the woods under
the dead leaves, and on the way from the station, a short mile,
while the car stuck in the mud, I found a bank showered with tiny