the landlord began to put away the glasses and
glance at the clock. Overhead the lighted blind showed where the
mysterious stranger still kept vigil; and over the way, beyond the
still leafless trees, towered up the twisted chimneys of Mrs. Baxter's
house. No word had been spoken connecting the two, yet one or two of
the men glanced across the way in vague surmise.

Nearly a couple of hours later the landlord himself came to the door
to give the great Mr. Nugent himself, with whom he had been sitting in
the inner parlor, a last good-night, and he too noticed that the
bedroom window was still lighted up. He jerked his finger in the
direction of it.

"A late old party," he said in an undertone.

Mr. Nugent nodded. He was still a little flushed with whisky and with
his previous recountings of what would have happened if his poor
daughter had lived to marry the young squire, of his (Mr. Nugent's)
swift social advancement and its outward evidences, and of the
hobnobbing with the gentry that would have taken place. He looked
reflectively across at the silhouette of the big house, all grey and
silver in the full moon. The landlord followed the direction of his
eyes; and for some reason unknown to them both, the two stood there
silent for a full half-minute. Yet there was nothing exceptional to be
seen.

Immediately before them, across the road, rose the high oak paling
that enclosed the lawn on this side, and the immense limes that
towered, untrimmed and undipped, in delicate soaring filigree against
the peacock sky of night. Behind them showed the chimneys, above the
dusky front of red-brick and the parapet. The moon was not yet full
upon the house, and the windows glimmered only here and there, in
lines and sudden patches where they caught the reflected light.

Yet the two looked at it in silence. They had seen such a sight fifty
times before, for the landlord and the other at least twice a week
spent such an evening together, and usually parted at the door. But
they stood here on this evening and looked.

All was as still as a spring night can be. Unseen and unheard the life
of the earth streamed upwards in twig and blade and leaf, pushing on
to the miracle of the prophet Jonas, to be revealed in wealth of color
and scent and sound a fortnight later. The wind had fallen; the last
doors were shut, and the two figures standing here were as still as
all else. To neither of them occurred even the thinnest shadow of a
su