hat connected Forge and
Furnace for a more direct way--followed the broad, rippling course of
the Canary, the stream that supplied the life of Myrtle Forge. He
automatically avoided the breaks in the rough trail; his mind, a dark
and confused chamber, still lighted by appalling flashes of memory. A
thing as slight, as incalculable, as a loose flint had been all that
prevented.... He wondered if Fanny and Thomas Gilkan were right in their
shared conviction; Fanny half persuaded, but the elder with a finality
stamped with an accent of the heroic. Whether or not they were right
didn't concern him, he decided; his only problem was to keep outside
all such entanglements. And at present he wanted to sleep.

The path left the creek and joined the road that swept about the face of
the dwelling at Myrtle Forge. The lawn, squarely raised from the public
way by a low brick terrace, showed the length of house behind the
dipping, horizontal branches, the beginning, pale gold, of a widespread
beech. It was a long structure of but two stories, built solidly out of
a dark, flinty stone with an indefinite pinkish glow against the lush
sod and sombre, flat greenery of a young English ivy about a narrow,
stiff portico.

Howat crossed the lawn above the house, where a low wing, holding the
kitchen and pantries, extended at right angles from the dwelling's
length. A shed with a flagging of broad stones lay inside the angle,
where a robust girl with an ozenbrigs skirt caught up on bare legs and
feet thrust into wooden clogs was scrubbing a steaming line of iron
pots. He quickly entered the centre hall from a rear door, and mounted,
as he hoped, without interruption to his room. That interior was
singularly restful, pleasant, after the confused and dishevelling night.

The sanded floor, patterned with a broom, held no carpet, nor were the
walls covered, but white and bare save for a number of small, framed
engravings--a view of Boston Harbour, Queene Anne's Tomb, and some black
line satirical portrait prints. A stone fireplace, ready for lighting,
had iron dogs and fender, and a screen lacquered in flowery wreaths on
a slender black stem. At one side stood a hinge-bound chest, its oak
panels glassy with age; on the other, an English set of drawers held a
mirror stand and scattered trifles--razors and gold sleeve-buttons, a
Barcelona handkerchief, candlesticks and flint, a twist of common,
pig-tail tobacco; while from a drawer knob hung a ba