question
serious. But I give myself credit for this: whatever has happened
since, I never blamed Halsey and Gertrude for taking me there. And
another thing: if the series of catastrophes there did nothing else, it
taught me one thing--that somehow, somewhere, from perhaps a
half-civilized ancestor who wore a sheepskin garment and trailed his
food or his prey, I have in me the instinct of the chase. Were I a man
I should be a trapper of criminals, trailing them as relentlessly as no
doubt my sheepskin ancestor did his wild boar. But being an unmarried
woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime
will probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my last
acquaintance with anything.

The property was owned by Paul Armstrong, the president of the Traders'
Bank, who at the time we took the house was in the west with his wife
and daughter, and a Doctor Walker, the Armstrong family physician.
Halsey knew Louise Armstrong,--had been rather attentive to her the
winter before, but as Halsey was always attentive to somebody, I had
not thought of it seriously, although she was a charming girl. I knew
of Mr. Armstrong only through his connection with the bank, where the
children's money was largely invested, and through an ugly story about
the son, Arnold Armstrong, who was reported to have forged his father's
name, for a considerable amount, to some bank paper. However, the
story had had no interest for me.

I cleared Halsey and Gertrude away to a house party, and moved out to
Sunnyside the first of May. The roads were bad, but the trees were in
leaf, and there were still tulips in the borders around the house. The
arbutus was fragrant in the woods under the dead leaves, and on the way
from the station, a short mile, while the car stuck in the mud, I found
a bank showered with tiny forget-me-nots. The birds--don't ask me what
kind; they all look alike to me, unless they have a hall mark of some
bright color--the birds were chirping in the hedges, and everything
breathed of peace. Liddy, who was born and bred on a brick pavement,
got a little bit down-spirited when the crickets began to chirp, or
scrape their legs together, or whatever it is they do, at twilight.

The first night passed quietly enough. I have always been grateful for
that one night's peace; it shows what the country might be, under
favorable circumstances. Never after that night did I put my head on
my pillow with