seemed so
still, that I wondered a moment later whether to credit my senses. At
any rate, it was not my business, I concluded, to stand staring at a
strange house at one o'clock in the morning, and I resumed my walk home.

A week later, a change in the routine of my daily life made me a regular
visitant in the neighborhood. Twice a day I passed the Drainger house.
In the morning it seemed to resist the genial sunlight, drawing its
hedge of shade trees closer about it and remaining impervious to all
suggestions of warmth. And on my return from the office in the evening
it was as sealed, as autumnal as ever. The pleasant sounds of human
intercourse, the chatting of women on the steps or the whirr of
lawn-mowers should, I fancied, at least unshutter a window or burst open
a frigid door. But the warm impulses of neighborhood life, like the
cries of the boys at their evening game of baseball, broke unheeded
against that clifflike impassivity. No one stirred within; no one, not
even the paper boy, dared to cut across the front yard; and a pile of
yellowing bills on the front steps testified to the unavailing temerity
of advertisers.

There was nothing to show I had not dreamed the episode of the light, as
I had begun to think of it. I could have made inquiries--Helen, Mark's
wife, knows everybody--but I did not. I could have consulted the
directory. But I preferred to keep the house to myself. I had a secret
sense of proprietorship (I am, I suppose, a romantic and imaginative
soul) and I preferred that the mystery should come to me. My alert
devotion must, I thought, have its reward. Indeed, my daily walks to
and from my work took on the character of a silent duel between the
expressionless walls and my expressionless face, and I was not going to
be beaten in taciturnity.

One Friday morning, well into August, I was surprised and curious to see
a woman standing under the elms in the front of the Drainger mansion.
The neighborhood was, for the moment, deserted. I concealed my eagerness
under a mask of impassivity. I thought myself masterly as, pretending an
interest in nothing, I yet watched the place out of the tail of my eye.
Imagine my increasing surprise to observe that as I approached, the
person in question came slowly down to the junction of her walk with the
sidewalk, so that, as I drew near we were face to face.

"You are Mr. Gillingham?" she asked.

I stopped mechanically and raised my hat. I visit Crosby regula