ness settling down upon him.

And now this girl, on a box back of Simmons' store, brought the buried
memories back into light. They disconcerted him, sweeping through the
lassitude of his mind; they stirred shadowy specters of fear.... The voice
of the sheriff carried to them, describing the excellent repair of
incidental sheds.

"I nailed all the tar-paper on the--the chicken house," she told him in a
fresh accession of unhappiness, the tears spilling over her round, flushed
cheeks.

It annoyed him to see her cry: it was as though Lettice was suffering
again from old misery. His irritation grew at this seeming renewal of what
had gone; it assumed the aspect of an intentional reproach, of Lettice
returned to bother him with her pain and death. He turned sharply to
continue on his way. But, almost immediately, he stopped.

"Your name?" he demanded.

"Adelaide Crandall."

The Crandalls, he knew, were a reputable family living in the valley
bottom east of Greenstream village. Matthew Crandall had died a few years
before, and, as this girl had indicated, had left a substantial farm to
each of his sons. Cannon would get this one, and it was more than
probable, the others.

The old enmity against Valentine Simmons, directed at Cannon, flamed
afresh. Simmons or the other--what did the name matter? they were the
same, a figurative apple press crushing the juice out of the country,
leaving but a mash of hopes and lives. He stood irresolute, while Adelaide
Crandall fought to control her emotions.

The badgering voice of the sheriff sounded again on his hearing. He
crossed the road, pushed open the grinding iron gate of the fence that
enclosed the Courthouse lawn, and made his way through the sere, fallen
leaves to the steps.

III

"Twenty-seven hundred and ninety dollars," the sheriff reiterated; "only
twenty-seven ninety ... this fine bottom land, all cleared and buildings
in best repair. Going! Going!"

"Three thousand," a man called from the group facing the columned
portico.

"Three thousand! Three thousand! Sale must be made. Going--"

"Thirty-one hundred," Gordon pronounced abruptly.

A stir of renewed interest animated the sale. Gordon heard his name
pronounced in accents of surprise. He was surprised at himself: his bid
had been unpremeditated--it had leaped like a flash of ignited powder out
of the resurrected enmity to Valentine Simmons, out of the memories
stirred by the figure that resembled