l tugging at his gloves:

Peter Davenant, Esq.,
31 Charlesbank.

It was premonition again that told him the contents before he had read a
line:

DEAR MR. DAVENANT,--If you are quite free this evening, could you
look in on me again? Don't come unless you have really nothing else
to do. Yours sincerely,

OLIVIA GUION.

He looked at his watch. It was only half-past eight. "I've no excuse for
not going," he said to himself. He made it clear to his heart that he
regretted the necessity. After the brave decisions to which he had
come, decisions which he might have put into execution, it was a call
backward, a retrogression. He began already to be afraid that he might
not be so resolute a second time. But he had no excuse for not going.
That fact took the matter out of his hands. There was nothing to do but
to crumple the letter into his pocket, take down his evening overcoat
from its peg, and leave the house before any one knew he had entered.

The night was mild. It was so soft and scented that it might have been
in June. From the stars and the street-lamps and the line of electrics
along the water's edge there was just light enough to show the surface
of the river, dim and metallic, and the wisps of vapor hovering above
the marshes. In the east, toward Cambridge and beyond Boston, the sky
was bright with the simulation of the dawn that precedes the moonrise.

His heart was curiously heavy. If he walked rapidly it was none the less
reluctantly. For the first time since he had taken part and lot in the
matter in hand he had no confidence in himself. He had ceased to be able
to say, "I'm not in love with her," while he had no other strengthening
formula to put in its place.

Algonquin Avenue, which older residents still called Rodney Lane, was as
still and deserted as a country road. The entry gate to Tory Hill
clicked behind him with curious, lonely loudness. The gravel crunched in
the same way beneath his tread. Looking up at the house, he saw neither
light nor sign of living. There was something stricken and sinister
about the place.

He was half-way toward the front door when a white figure came forward
beneath the Corinthian portico. If it had not been so white he couldn't
have seen it.

"I'm here, Mr. Davenant."

The voice, too, sounded lonely, like a voice in a vast, empty house. He
crossed the lawn to the portico. Olivia had already reseated herself in
the wicker chair from which she