greatness; but, at the end, the parting was almost as bitter as the
other. Orth knew then how men feel when their sons go forth to
encounter the world and ask no more of the old companionship.

The author's boxes were packed. He sent the manuscript to his publisher
an hour after it was finished--he could not have given it a final
reading to have saved it from failure--directed his secretary to examine
the proof under a microscope, and left the next morning for Homburg.
There, in inmost circles, he forgot his children. He visited in several
of the great houses of the Continent until November; then returned to
London to find his book the literary topic of the day. His secretary
handed him the reviews; and for once in a way he read the finalities of
the nameless. He found himself hailed as a genius, and compared in
astonished phrases to the prodigiously clever talent which the world for
twenty years had isolated under the name of Ralph Orth. This pleased
him, for every writer is human enough to wish to be hailed as a genius,
and immediately. Many are, and many wait; it depends upon the fashion of
the moment, and the needs and bias of those who write of writers. Orth
had waited twenty years; but his past was bedecked with the headstones
of geniuses long since forgotten. He was gratified to come thus publicly
into his estate, but soon reminded himself that all the adulation of
which a belated world was capable could not give him one thrill of the
pleasure which the companionship of that book had given him, while
creating. It was the keenest pleasure in his memory, and when a man is
fifty and has written many books, that is saying a great deal.

He allowed what society was in town to lavish honors upon him for
something over a month, then cancelled all his engagements and went down
to Chillingsworth.

His estate was in Hertfordshire, that county of gentle hills and tangled
lanes, of ancient oaks and wide wild heaths, of historic houses, and
dark woods, and green fields innumerable--a Wordsworthian shire, steeped
in the deepest peace of England. As Orth drove towards his own gates he
had the typical English sunset to gaze upon, a red streak with a church
spire against it. His woods were silent. In the fields, the cows stood
as if conscious of their part. The ivy on his old gray towers had been
young with his children.

He spent a haunted night, but the next day stranger happenings began.

II

He rose early, and went fo