oubts over in his
mind, that the waitress came out of the kitchen and drove him from the
table with her severe, impatient stare.

He put on his hat, and with his overcoat on his arm he started out for a
walk which was hopeless, but not so aimless as he feigned to himself.
The air was lullingly warm still as he followed the long village street
down the hill toward the river, where the lunge of rapids filled the
dusk with a sort of humid uproar; then he turned and followed it back
past the hotel as far as it led towards the open country. At the edge of
the village he came to a large, old-fashioned house, which struck him as
typical, with its outward swaying fence of the Greek border pattern, and
its gate-posts topped by tilting urns of painted wood. The house itself
stood rather far back from the street, and as he passed it he saw that
it was approached by a pathway of brick which was bordered with box.
Stalks of last year's hollyhocks and lilacs from garden beds on either
hand lifted their sharp points, here and there broken and hanging down.
It was curious how these details insisted through the twilight.

He walked on until the wooden village pathway ended in the country mud,
and then again he returned up upon his steps. As he reapproached the
house he saw lights. A brighter radiance streamed from the hall door,
which was apparently open, and a softer glow flushed the windows of one
of the rooms that flanked the hall.

As Langbourne came abreast of the gate the tinkle of a gay laugh rang
out to him; then ensued a murmur of girls' voices in the room, and
suddenly this stopped, and the voice that he knew, the voice that seemed
never to have ceased to sound in his nerves and pulses, rose in singing
words set to the Spanish air of _La Paloma_.

It was one of the songs he had sent to Miss Simpson, but he did not need
this material proof that it was she whom he now heard. There was no
question of what he should do. All doubt, all fear, had vanished; he had
again but one impulse, one desire, one purpose. But he lingered at the
gate till the song ended, and then he unlatched it and started up the
walk towards the door. It seemed to him a long way; he almost reeled as
he went; he fumbled tremulously for the bell-pull beside the door, while
a confusion of voices in the adjoining room--the voices which had waked
him from his sleep, and which now sounded like voices in a dream--came
out to him.

The light from the lamp hanging