g, he faced the way to his
father's farm and the distant pines emblazoned on the west.

A clear gold light flooded the landscape, warming the pale dust of the
deserted road. The air was keen with the autumn tang, and as he walked
the quick blood leaped to his cheeks. He was no longer conscious of his
forty years--his boyhood was with him, and middle age was a dream, or
less than a dream.

In the branch road a fall of tawny leaves hid the ruts of wheels, and
the sun, striking the ground like a golden lance, sent out sharp, fiery
sparks as from a mine of light. Overhead the red trees rustled.

It was here that Eugenia had ridden beside him in the early
morning--here he had seen her face against the enkindled branches--and
here he had placed the scarlet gum leaves in her horse's bridle. The
breeze in the wood came to him like the echo of her laugh, faded as the
memory of his past passion. Well, he had more than most men, for he had
the ghost of a laugh and the shadow of love.

Passing his father's house, he went on beyond the fallen shanty of
Uncle Ish into the twilight of the cedars. At the end of the avenue he
saw the rows of box--twisted and tall with age--leading to the empty
house, where the stone steps were wreathed in vines. Did Eugenia ever
come back, he wondered, or was the house to crumble as Miss Chris's
rockery had done? On the porch he saw the marks made by the general's
chair, which had been removed, and on one of the long green benches
there was an E cut in a childish hand. At a window above--Eugenia's
window--a shutter hung back upon its hinges, and between the muslin
curtains it seemed to him that a face looked out and smiled--not the
face of Eugenia, but a ghost again, the ghost of his old romance.

He went into the garden, crossing the cattle lane, where the footprints
of the cows were fresh in the dust. Near at hand he heard a voice
shouting. It was the voice of the overseer, but the sound startled him,
and he awoke abruptly to himself and his forty years. The spell of the
past was broken--even the riotous old garden, blending its many colours
in a single blur, could not bring it back. The chrysanthemums and the
roses and the hardy zenias that came up uncared for were powerless to
reinvoke the spirit of the place. If Eugenia, in her full-blown
motherhood, had risen in an overgrown path he might have passed her by
unheeding. His Eugenia was a girl in a muslin gown, endowed with
immortal youth--the y