lamp dusted it thoroughly, and wheeling it back, set it under the
portrait. He washed the glass from which he had dined and filled it at
the cup of the garden fountain, put into it the rose from his hat and
set it on the reading-stand. The small china dog caught his eye and he
picked it up casually. The head came off in his hands. It had been a
bon-bon box and was empty save for a narrow strip of yellowed paper, on
which were written some meaningless figures: 17-28-94-0. He pondered
this a moment, then thrust it into one of the empty pigeonholes of the
desk. On the latter stood an old-fashioned leaf-calendar; the date
it exposed was May 14th. Curiously enough the same date would recur
to-morrow. The page bore a quotation: "Every man carries his fate on
a riband about his neck." The line had been quoted in his father's
letter. May 14th!--how much that date and that motto may have meant for
him!

He put the calendar back, filled his pipe and sat down facing the open
bow-window. The dark was mysteriously lifting, the air filling with a
soft silver-gray translucence that touched the wild growth as with a
fairy gossamer. Presently, from between the still elms, the new sickle
moon climbed into view. From the garden came a plaintive bird-cry,
long-drawn and wavering and then, from farther away, the triple mellow
whistle of a whippoorwill.

The place was alive now with bird-notes, and he listened with a new
delight. He thought suddenly, with a kind of impatient wonder, that
never in his life had he sat perfectly alone in a solitude and listened
to the voices of the night. The only out-of-doors he knew had been
comprised in motor-whirls on frequented highroads, seashore, or mountain
months where bridge and dancing were forever on the cards, or else such
up-to-date "camping" as was indulged in at the Fargos' "shack" on the
St. Lawrence. He sat now with his senses alert to a new world that his
sophisticated eye and ear had never known. Something new was entering
into him that seemed the spirit of the place; the blessing of the tall
silver poplars outside, the musical scented gardens and the moonlight
laid like a placid benediction over all.

He rose to push the shutter wider and in the movement his elbow sent a
shallow case of morocco leather that had lain on the desk crashing to
the floor. It opened and a heavy metallic object rolled almost to his
feet. He saw at a glance that it was an old-fashioned rusted
dueling-pistol.