ze on the
horizon showed that a fog was waiting to steal up the Saconnet on the
turn of the tide; but all about him fields and woods were steeped in
golden light.

He drove past grey-shingled farm-houses in orchards, past hay-fields
and groves of oak, past villages with white steeples rising sharply
into the fading sky; and at last, after stopping to ask the way of some
men at work in a field, he turned down a lane between high banks of
goldenrod and brambles. At the end of the lane was the blue glimmer of
the river; to the left, standing in front of a clump of oaks and
maples, he saw a long tumble-down house with white paint peeling from
its clapboards.

On the road-side facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in
which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors
"hitch" their "teams." Archer, jumping down, led his pair into the
shed, and after tying them to a post turned toward the house. The
patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hay-field; but to the left
an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes encircled
a ghostly summer-house of trellis-work that had once been white,
surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but
continued to take ineffectual aim.

Archer leaned for a while against the gate. No one was in sight, and
not a sound came from the open windows of the house: a grizzled
Newfoundland dozing before the door seemed as ineffectual a guardian as
the arrowless Cupid. It was strange to think that this place of
silence and decay was the home of the turbulent Blenkers; yet Archer
was sure that he was not mistaken.

For a long time he stood there, content to take in the scene, and
gradually falling under its drowsy spell; but at length he roused
himself to the sense of the passing time. Should he look his fill and
then drive away? He stood irresolute, wishing suddenly to see the
inside of the house, so that he might picture the room that Madame
Olenska sat in. There was nothing to prevent his walking up to the
door and ringing the bell; if, as he supposed, she was away with the
rest of the party, he could easily give his name, and ask permission to
go into the sitting-room to write a message.

But instead, he crossed the lawn and turned toward the box-garden. As
he entered it he caught sight of something bright-coloured in the
summer-house, and presently made it out to be a pink parasol. The
parasol drew him like a magnet: he was su