es. They're big iron ones."

"Isn't there any way of riding?"

"I guess not," said the youth, and disappeared into the woods on a
bicycle.

"Oh, it will be only a step," said Lois, starting off down the walk,
followed perforce by Dosia, with the hand-bag, both walking in silence.

The excursion, from an easily imagined, matter-of-fact daylight
possibility, had been growing gradually a thing of the dark, unknown,
fantastic. A faint remnant of the fading light remained in the west,
vanishing as they looked at it. High above the treetops a pale moon hung
high; there seemed nothing to connect them with civilization but that
iron track curved out of sight.

The quarter of a mile prolonged itself indefinitely, with that strangely
eternal effect of the unknown; yet the big iron gates were reached at
last, showing a long winding drive within. It was here that Eugene Larue
had built a house for his bride, living in it these summers when she was
away, alone among his kind, a man who must confess tacitly before the
world that he was unable to make his wife care for him--a darkened,
desolate, lonely life, as dark and as desolate as this house seemed now.
An undefined dread possessed Dosia, though Lois spoke confidently:

"The walk has not really been very long. We'll probably drive back. It's
odd that there are no lights, but perhaps he is sitting outside. Ah,
there's a light!"

Yet, as she spoke, the light left the window and hung on the cornice
above--it was the moon, and not a lamp, that had made it. They ascended
the piazza steps; there was no one there.

"There is a knocker at the front door," said Lois. She pounded, and the
house vibrated terrifyingly through the stillness. At the same instant a
scraping on the gravel walk behind them made them turn. It was the boy
on the bicycle, who had sped back to them.

"Mr. Larue ain't there," he called. "The woman who closed up the house
told me he had a cable from his wife, and he sailed for Europe this
afternoon. She says, do you want the key?"

"No," said Lois, and the messenger once more disappeared.

[Illustration: "'THEY'LL GET FULL OF EARTH AGAIN,' SHE PROTESTED"]

This, then, was the end of her exaltation--for this she had passionately
nerved herself! There was to be neither the warmth of instant
comprehension of her errand nor the frank giving of aid when necessity
had been pleaded; there was nothing. She shifted the baby over to the
other shoulder, and they retr