road.

A careful survey as far as he could see in the bright moonlight,
satisfied him that Morgan had not left his horse and buggy around there
anywhere. He might come later. Joe decided to wait around there and
see.

It was a cool autumn night; a prowling wind moved silently. Over
hedgerow and barn roof the moonlight lay in white radiance; the dusty
highway beyond the gate was changed by it into a royal road. Joe felt
that there were memories abroad as he rested his arms on the gate-post.
Moonlight and a soft wind always moved him with a feeling of indefinite
and shapeless tenderness, as elusive as the echo of a song. There was a
soothing quality in the night for him, which laved his bruised
sensibilities like balm. He expanded under its influence; the tumult of
his breast began to subside.

The revelations of that day had fallen rudely upon the youth's
delicately tuned and finely adjusted nature. He had recoiled in horror
from the sacrilege which that house had suffered. In a measure he felt
that he was guilty along with Ollie in her unspeakable sin, in that he
had been so stupid as to permit it.

But, he reflected as he waited there with his hand upon the weathered
gate, great and terrible as the upheaval of his day-world had been, the
night had descended unconscious of it. The moonlight had brightened
untroubled by it; the wind had come from its wooded places unhurried for
it, and unvexed. After all, it had been only an unheard discord in the
eternal, vast harmony. The things of men were matters of infinitesimal
consequence in nature. The passing of a nation of men would not disturb
its tranquillity as much as the falling of a leaf.

It was then long past the hour when he was habitually asleep, and his
vigil weighed on him heavily. No one had passed along the road; Morgan
had not come in sight. Joe was weary from his day's internal conflict
and external toil. He began to consider the advisability of returning to
bed.

Perhaps, thought he, his watch was both futile and unjust. Ollie did not
intend to keep her part in the agreement. She must be burning with
remorse for her transgression.

He turned and walked slowly toward the house, stopping a little way
along to look back and make sure that Morgan had not appeared. Thus he
stood a little while, and then resumed his way.

The house was before him, shadows in the sharp angles of its roof, its
windows catching the moonlight like wakeful eyes. There was a cal