loitering groups of humanity wont to
congregate about the counter. The day glared garishly through the great
skylight on the dusty interior; the big windows held expansive sections
of mountain landscape, bronze, blue, and scarlet, like vivid paintings in
frames. A staircase of fine and stately proportions descended from the
lofty reach of the upper story, dividing into two sweeping flights from
the landing. A massive mantel-piece was on the opposite side, with an
immense fireplace, and heavy brass andirons and fender. She was a
stranger to the interior of the place, for her visit to the locality
began after the closing of the hotel, but though she looked about with a
vague sub-current of interest as she sauntered through the building, glad
of any pretext to prolong her absence from the bungalow, her mind was
really introverted.

She felt that she could never forgive herself her part in the scene of
the morning, that wild, impulsive cry that voiced at once confession and
a plea for pardon. At the sheer recollection of his rejoinder she tingled
and winced as from the touch of fire. "Don't mention it," quotha. And
they neither had aught to regret--he was sure of that, forsooth! Regret!
It was only another name for her life. There was nothing but regret,
night and day, sleeping and waking. But oh, how could she have said the
words! What was it to him? He cared naught for her now and her
cruelties--an old, old story to him, to be sure, told to the end, the
pages shut. And she must needs seem to seek to turn the leaf anew! What
else indeed could he think? Surely she had been beguiled by Gladys'
vicarious sentimentality as to the lure of his coming, even while she had
flouted the possibility.

Suddenly--a sound! It broke upon her absorption so abruptly that in an
instant every muscle was adjusted for flight, though she paused and
looked fearfully over her shoulder. Only an echo, she told her plunging
heart--an echo of her own footfalls in the resonant emptiness of the
deserted place. She had wandered down a long corridor, from which doors
opened only on one side into the big bare dining-room, the chairs all
ranged on the tops of the many round tables, standing at equidistant
intervals. An echo--doubtless that was all. She upbraided herself to have
sustained so sudden and causeless a fright. Her heart was beating like a
trip-hammer. It seemed to fill all the building with the wild iteration
of its pulsations. As she sought to