hat might have been expected. She
was bound up in you."

"O Lord!" said Raven.

But Amelia, once started, knew no bounds.

"And that's what I say, John. If you take hold of yourself now and get
into shape again, you've a great many years before you, and Anne's money
with yours--well, I don't see why you shouldn't look forward to a great
deal."

Raven went over to the window and sat down there staring at the black
bare branches and the clear sky. It seemed to him unspeakably desolate
and even, in its indifference to his own mood, cruel. So was Amelia, he
thought. In spite of her platitudes about enjoying a great deal, she had
him dead and buried. He became absurdly conscious that he was afraid,
but of one thing only: to hear her voice again. Upon that, thinking how
it would actually sound, he turned about and ignominiously left the
room. And since there was no spot in the house where she might not
follow him he took his hat and jacket from the kitchen and went out
through the shed. Charlotte was washing dishes at the sink, but she did
not, according to her custom, look up to pass the time of day. A cloud
rested even on her brown hair and splendid shoulders. Amelia had brought
the cloud. She'd have to get out, even if he had to tell her so.

With no intention, but an involuntary desire to be where Amelia would
not find him (and also, it was possible, where that other quietest of
women could be found) he went down the road to the maples, and then
plunged into the woods and up the hill. He had first gone along the road
to mislead Amelia, if she chanced to be looking out. He couldn't have
her following, and she was equal to it, pumps and all. Halfway up the
hill, making his way through undergrowth where the snow packed heavily,
he turned off at his left and so got into the wood road. And then, his
breath coming quick from haste and the vexation of the clogged way, he
did not slacken to cool off in the relief of easier going, but,
breathless as he was, began to run, and got more breathless still. Tira
was up there in the hut. He was sure of it. And for those first hurried
minutes he forgot her presence there meant only added misery, but dwelt
upon his own need of such a spirit as hers; the strength, the poise, the
ready coolness.

At the door he felt rebuffed, it looked so inhospitable, so tight
against him. He tapped and waited. No one came. Then he tried it and
found it locked and the revulsion was bitter. He was abo