would have been right about it. No one could have
expected to find Noble to-night inside the old, four-square brick house
of H. I. Atwater, Senior, chief of the Atwaters and father of too gentle
Julia. Moreover, Mr. Atwater himself was not at present in the house; he
had closed and locked it the day before, giving the servants a week's
vacation and telling them not to return till he sent for them; and he
had then gone out of town to look over a hominy-mill he thought of
buying. And yet, as the wake went on, there was a light in the house,
and under that light sat Noble Dill.

Returning home, after Florence had placed the shattering paper within
his hand, Noble had changed his shoes and his tie. He was but a
mechanism; he had no motive. The shoes he put on were no better than
those he took off; the fresh tie was no lovelier than the one he had
worn; nor had it even the lucidity to be a purple one, as the banner of
grief. No; his action was, if so viewed, "crazy," as Aunt Fanny had
called it. Agitation first took this form; that was all. Love and change
of dress are so closely allied; and in happier days, when Noble had come
home from work and would see Julia in the evening, he usually changed
his clothes. No doubt there is some faint tracery here, probably too
indistinct to repay contemplation.

When he left the house he walked rapidly downtown, and toward the end of
this one-mile journey he ran; but as he was then approaching the railway
station, no one thought him eccentric. He was, however, for when he
entered the station he went to a bench and sat looking upward for more
than ten minutes before he rose, went to a ticket window and asked for
a time-table.

"What road?" the clerk inquired.

"All points South," said Noble.

He placed the time-table, still folded, in his pocket, rested an elbow
on the brass apron of the window, and would have given himself up to
reflections, though urged to move away. Several people, wishing to buy
tickets, had formed a line behind him; they perceived that Noble had
nothing more to say to the clerk, and the latter encouraged their
protests, even going so far as to inquire: "For heaven's sakes, can't
you let these folk buy their tickets?" And since Noble still did not
move: "My gosh, haven't you got no _feet_?"

"Feet? Oh, yes," said Noble gently. "I'm going away." And went back to
his seat.

Afterwhile, he sought to study his time-table. Ordinarily, his mind was
one of those ab