bottomless channels
and of a lake not giving up its dead. It was alarming alright to sit
across that expanse of water and see not a boat or hear a sound. Almost
as eerie as standing here looking at Meg talk of Humboldt's forecasting
eclipses back in '32. How he'd been right, dead right, each time with
his divining rod.

Meg was still on the subject of Humboldt. Seems as for all his
questions he had met a bitter end. To hear Meg tell it, one evening
after the leaves were down--a cold evening at that--Humboldt, a recluse
and bachelor recently separated from a sister with whom he had lived,
was fetching wood. Being old and a careless housekeeper, the old man
tripped and split his lantern. They found his charred remains near the
door of the woodhouse next morning. Meg had seen the flames light the
November sky. To hear her tell of it, that night had seen an uncommonly
large number of cars on the back roads off the Palace. Meg was not
drawing direct inferences, but I could see in the space between her
eyes a sly connection.

She was silent on such things, drew the conversation back then forth to
peculiarities surrounding the Ashley home. Meg was an Ashley. Since her
husband's death, she had stayed in the family home not only days but
those dreaded nights as well. I pressed for explanations.

"But if you wouldn't stay a night with Charlie when he was alive--the
two of you--when you were married and had the companionship, why would
you dare now? If you made the journey into town each night religiously
for forty years only staying here during the daylight hours, how can
you bring yourself to remain now?"

The question seemed logical enough, but seemed to irritate her. But was
I trespassing too indelicately on the subject of the late model cars or
probing into a veiled past too transparently?

"Yourn a relative of Conrad's,"--Jean's I heard her say. To my
surprise, I told her my aunt had often taken me by this house on the
way to Kincaid. As a child, the house in its unkempt stage had made a
lasting impression on me. Brooding, enormously lonesome, the derelict
house slouched against a weathered fence in a loathsome fashion.
Overcast skies or darkness gave it the appearance of containing as many
goblins or trolls as fancy might see fit to inhabit, I thought of a
magnificent set of ruins, something Hawthorne might have used for his
Seven Gables or a nigh perfect setting for a decadent family in the
throes of their own povert