year or two ago. He had a little chicken farm. As no one else wanted to
live in such a desolate place, so far from the scattered hamlets, she had
got it for a small rent. The house was a tiny imitation of a castle, with
crenelated parapet and tower. Crumbling now and weather-stained, it had a
quaint, human, wistful air. Its face was turned away from the road toward a
bit of garden, which was fenced off from the lane by arbors of grape-vines.

Sommers tied his horse to the gate post. Mrs. Preston did not speak after
they reached the house. Her face had lost its animation. They stood still
for some time, gazing into the peaceful garden plot and the bronzed oaks
beyond, as if loath to break the intimacy of the last half hour. In the
solitude, the dead silence of the place, there seemed to lurk misfortune
and pain. Suddenly from a distance sounded the whirr of an electric car,
passing on the avenue behind them. The noise came softened across the open
lot--a distant murmur from the big city that was otherwise so remote.

The spring twilight had descended, softening all brutal details. The broad
horizon above the lake was piled deep with clouds. Beyond the oak trees, in
the southern sky, great tongues of flame shot up into the dark heavens out
of the blast furnaces of the steel works. Deep-toned, full-throated frogs
had begun their monotonous chant.




CHAPTER VIII


"Shall we go in?" the doctor asked at last.