t.
At a distance a dog had treed some little wood creature, and bayed
monotonously.

There was a weakness at the core of my strength. I waged this combat for
the sake of Desire Michell. _But what was she to whom the Thing laid
claim by the pact of centuries?_

Darkness began to tinge with light. Pale gray filtered into the dusk
with grudging slowness. As day approached I saw that a fog enfolded the
house in vapor, stealing into the room in coils and swirls like thin
smoke. The lamps looked sickly and dim. I forced away my languor, rose
and walked to the nearest window.

Something was moving up the slope from the lake; a dim shape about which
the fog clung in steamy billows. My shaken nerves thrilled unpleasantly.
What stirred at this empty hour? What should loom so tall?

A moment later the figure was near enough to be distinguished as Ethan
Vere, bearing several long fishing-rods over his shoulder.

"Vere!" I hailed him, with mingled relief and utter disgust with myself.
"Anything going on so early?"

He looked up at me--I never saw Vere startled--and came on to stop
beneath the window. Taking off his cap, he ran his fingers through his
black curls, pushing their wetness from his forehead. I noticed how the
mists painted him with a spectral pallor.

"Good morning, Mr. Locke," he greeted me. "Just as I've been thinking,
there are some big snapping-turtles about the lake and creek. I guessed
there'd be some war between them and me before that water was safe for
use! One of the fellows dragged a duck under, drowned it and started
feeding right before my eyes, just now."

"We will have to get a canoe."

He nodded placid assent.

"That'll look pretty on the lake. Phillida will like it. But I guess
I'll keep a homely old flat-bottomed punt out of sight around some
corner for work. The other craft goes over too prompt for jobs like
mine, and don't hold enough. I'm going to fetch my rifle, now. I'd
admire to blow that duck-eater's ugly head off."

"I will get into some clothes and be right with you," I invited myself
to the hunt.

"I'd like to have you," he replied with his quaint politeness. There
were times when I could visualize Vere's New England mother as if I had
known her.

The human interlude had been enough to dispel the black humors of the
night. When I was ready to go out, I opened the drawer that held the
copper-bronze braid and took it into my hand. How vital with youth its
crisp resilience felt