prepared to mount. "So he made a quick recovery."

"No, no! I didn't say that," she replied passionately. "You knew, you knew
_that_ couldn't be. He has--he is--I don't know how to say it."

Sommers slipped the bridle-rein over the horse's head and walked on by her
side. She looked down at the roadway, as if to hide her burning face.

"Where is he now?" the doctor asked, finally, more gently.

"With me, down there." Mrs. Preston waved her hand vaguely toward the
southern prairie. They began to walk more briskly, with a tacit purpose in
their motion. When the wagon road forked, Mrs. Preston took the branch that
led south out of the park. It opened into a high-banked macadamized avenue
bordered by broken wooden sidewalks. The vast flat land began to design
itself, as the sun faded out behind the irregular lines of buildings two
miles to the west. A block south, a huge red chimney was pouring tranquilly
its volume of dank smoke into the air. On the southern horizon a sooty
cloud hovered above the mills of South Chicago. But, except for the monster
chimney, the country ahead of the two was bare, vacant, deserted. The
avenue traversed empty lots, mere squares of sand and marsh, cut up in
regular patches for future house-builders. Here and there an advertising
landowner had cemented a few rods of walk and planted a few trees to trap
the possible purchaser into thinking the place "improved." But the cement
walks were crumbling, the trees had died, and rank thorny weeds choked
about their roots. The cross streets were merely lined out, a deep ditch on
either side of an embankment.

"My God, what a place!" the young doctor exclaimed. "The refuse acres of
the earth."