entrancing. If Rosie had only come to meet
_him_ like that!--in that mystery!--in that seclusion!--with that
trust!--with that surrender of herself!

"How can I blame Claude?"

It was his first formulated thought. He tramped on again. How could he
blame Claude? Poor Claude! He had his difficulties. No one knew that
better than Thor. And if Rosie loved the boy ...

* * * * *

Below the ridge of the long, wooded hill there was a road running
parallel to County Street. He turned into that. But he began to perceive
to what goal he was tending. He had taken this direction aimlessly; and
yet it was as if his feet had acted of their own accord, without the
guiding impulse of the mind. From a long, straight stem a banner of
smoke floated heavy and luminous against the softer luminosity of the
sky. He knew now where he was going and what he had to do.

But he paused at the gate, when he got there, uncertain as to where at
this hour he should find her. There was a faint light in the mother's
room, but none elsewhere in the house. The moon was by this time high
enough to throw a band of radiance across Thorley's Pond and strike pale
gleams from the glass of the hothouse roofs.

It required some gazing to detect in Rosie's greenhouse the blurred glow
of a lamp. He remembered that there was a desk near this spot at which
she sometimes wrote. She was writing there now--perhaps to Claude.

But she was not writing to Claude; she was making out bills. As
bookkeeper to the establishment, as well as utility woman in general, it
was the one hour in the day when she had leisure for the task. She
raised her head to peer down the long, dim aisle of flowers on hearing
him open the door.

"It's I, Rosie," he called to her, as he passed between banks of
carnations. "Don't be afraid."

She was not afraid, but she was excited. As a matter of fact, she was
saying to herself, "He's found out." It was what she had been expecting.
She had long ago begun to see that his almost daily visits were not on
her mother's account. He had been coming less as a doctor than as a
detective. Very well! If his detecting had been successful, so much the
better. Since the battle had to be fought some time, it couldn't begin
too soon.

She remained seated, her right hand holding the pen, her left lying on
the open pages of the ledger. He spoke before he had fully emerged into
the glow of the lamp.

"Oh, Rosie! What's this ab