nging by the door, the kerosene can under the step, the
lean hen scuttling away under the currant bushes, the vegetable garden
lying parched and dry along the fence. There was a small artificial
mound of stones at one side of the house, with a somewhat scanty growth
of portulaca springing from its top. The last occupant of the house was
responsible for that adornment. Allison wondered how they had happened
to leave it there so long. That mound of stones--all his hopes might
have been buried under it and he could not have hated it more. It stood,
somehow, for all that chafed and irritated him here--the moral, mental,
and physical stuntedness of the people--their petty ambitions, petty
jealousies, petty quarrels, petty virtues.

Allison was seized with a sudden vague fear as he saw on the kitchen
window-sill, just where he had left it at seven this morning, the
package which Gertrude had promised to take to Mr. Fulton as soon as she
had finished the breakfast dishes. He noticed almost at the same instant
that the kitchen door was open; countless flies were sailing in and out;
and there on the cellar door, in the blazing sunlight, was the morning's
milk, thick and sour by this time. He quickened his steps--made his way
hurriedly through the kitchen and dining-room, noticing, as he went,
various signs of disorder. The kitchen fire was out--the floor unswept;
the coffee he had knocked over when he had built the fire this morning
lay where it had fallen: the room was full of its pungent odor. On the
dining-room table were the remnants of breakfast, the oatmeal dry and
stiff, the butter melted down to a thin oil. In the front room he found
Gertrude, bending a flushed face over something she was writing. She
gave a start of fright as he came in--then got very red.

"I sat down to write a little of that play I was telling you about last
night"--she was picking up her papers with frantic haste as she
spoke--"and I had no idea it was getting so late." She cast an appalled
glance around the room, and hurried out to begin clearing off the table,
making a great clatter with the dishes in her excitement and haste.

[Illustration: "THIS DREARY, GAUNT BLACK FIGURE, WAITING ALWAYS FOR HIM
AT THE TOP OF THE HILL"]

Allison stood for a minute looking after her wearily. Her manner hurt
him. More than once, in days gone by, he had told her fondly that when
she married him she should do nothing but what she liked to do--if she
chose, she m