do
tomorrow that you can't do next day."

"No, but, alone in the woods, I can do a piece of work that would
never come within range of me in town."

"I understand. You want to shake everybody and be absolutely alone."

"Yes, absolutely."

"But stay here over night, and if you must, walk in tomorrow. You
would be just as much alone then, wouldn't you?"

"No, I am never perfectly alone except in the dark."

"Well, I have worked with you the best I know how; and you see how I'm
fixed--got to find out how I stand. But I hate to see you go off in
this way alone. Just look how dark it is down yonder. And I am to go
back to the light and to sit there and think of you trudging along in
the dark. Just think of the light I am going into--the light of that
smile."

"And from away out in the woods I may turn to see you blinking in the
glare. But I am keeping you. Good night."

"Wait a moment. Now, you won't think hard of me, will you?"

"Hard of you? Not if you go back."

"All right, then. Good night."

Pitt had given Lyman minute directions as to the road he should take,
a pathway through the woods and across fields, and leading to the
county road at a point not far from the ruined dam. The path was not
straight, and in the dark woods he kept it with difficulty, having to
pat with his foot to find the hard ground, but in the turned-out
fields the way was well-defined and he walked rapidly. Once he crossed
a stretch of ripening oats, and in a dip-down where the growth was
rank he heard voices and a song--hired men lying out to wear off the
effect of a visit to the distillery. He came to the dam much sooner
than he had expected, and near the trickling water he sat down upon a
rock to rest. An island of willows had grown up in the broad shallow
pond. Out from this dark thicket, a great bird flew and with its wings
slapped the face of the quiet water, and the frogs hushed and the
world was still, save the trickling from the dam, till the frogs began
again. For days, there had been in his mind the vague form of a story,
and he strove to summon it now, but the forms that came were shadows
with no light in their eyes. Throughout all the dark woods this dim
web of a plot had not come to him, though he had thought to ponder
over it before setting out, but had forgotten it when once on the
road. He sent his mind back over the course he had followed, to pick
up any little suggestions that might have come to him to be held for a