ern that formed his depot on the outskirts of the city.

Later, in the solitude of his room, he heard the hesitating patter of rain
on the roof. He thought, stretching his weary frame on the rigorous bed,
that if it turned cold through the night, the frozen road would be
dangerous to-morrow.

XXII

Buckley Simmons was late in arriving from the hospital, and it was past
seven before the stage departed for Greenstream. Buckley sat immediately
back of Gordon Makimmon; the former's head, muffled in a long woolen
scarf, showed only his dull, unwitting gaze.

They rapidly left the dank stone streets and houses. The smoke ascending
from the waterworks was no greyer than the day. The rain fell in small,
chill, gusty sweeps.

Gordon Makimmon settled resolutely to the long drive; he was oblivious of
the miles of sodden road stretching out behind, he was not aware of the
pale, dripping, wintry landscape--he was lost in a continuous train of
memories wheeling bright and distant through his mind. He was looking back
upon the features of the past as he might have looked at a series of
dissolving pictures, his interest in which was solely that of spectator.

They were without unity, unintelligible in the light of any concerted
purpose or result. They were, however, highly pleasant, or amazingly
inexplicable. For example:

His wife, Lettice, how young she was smiling at him from the sunny grass!
She walked happily toward him, with her shawl about her shoulders, but she
didn't reach him; she was sitting in the rocking chair on the
porch ... the day faded, she was singing a little throaty song, sewing
upon a little square of white--she was gone as swiftly, as utterly, as a
shadow. The shape of Meta Beggs, animated with incomprehensible gestures,
took its place in the procession of his memories. She, grimacing, came
alike to naught, vanished. All stopped for a moment and then disappeared,
leaving no trace behind.

He mechanically arrested the horses before the isolated buildings that
formed the midday halt.

Buckley Simmons, crouching low over the table, consumed his dinner with
formless, guttural approbation. The place above his forehead, where he had
been struck by the stone, was puckered and dark. He raised his eyes--the
unquenchable hatred of Gordon Makimmon flared momentarily on his vacuous
countenance like the flame of a match lit in the wind.

Once more on the road the rain stopped, the cold increased; high above