In his rage he unjustly condemned Aunt Maria as a
meddling old busybody, and gave her ring to the cook.

After two months of pilgrimages to places sacred to the memory of Polly
Kirkland, Ainsley found that feeding his love on post-mortems was poor
fare, and, in surrender, determined to evacuate New York. Since her
departure he had received from Miss Kirkland several letters, but they
contained no hint of a change in her affections, and search them as
he might, he could find no cipher or hidden message. They were merely
frank, friendly notes of travel; at first filled with gossip of the
steamer, and later telling of excursions around Cairo. If they held any
touch of feeling they seemed to show that she was sorry for him, and
as she could not regard him in any way more calculated to increase his
discouragement, he, in utter hopelessness, retreated to the solitude
of the farm. In New York he left behind him two trunks filled with such
garments as a man would need on board a steamer and in the early spring
in Egypt. They had been packed and in readiness since the day she sailed
away, when she had told him of the possible sign. But there had been
no sign. Nor did he longer believe in one. So in the baggage-room of an
hotel the trunks were abandoned, accumulating layers of dust and charges
for storage.

At the farm the snow still lay in the crevices of the rocks and beneath
the branches of the evergreens, but under the wet, dead leaves little
flowers had begun to show their faces. The "backbone of the winter was
broken" and spring was in the air. But as Ainsley was certain that his
heart also was broken, the signs of spring did not console him. At each
week-end he filled the house with people, but they found him gloomy and
he found them dull. He liked better the solitude of the midweek days.
Then for hours he would tramp through the woods, pretending she was at
his side, pretending he was helping her across the streams swollen with
winter rains and melted snow. On these excursions he cut down trees that
hid a view he thought she would have liked, he cut paths over which she
might have walked. Or he sat idly in a flat-bottomed scow in the lake
and made a pretence of fishing. The loneliness of the lake and the
isolation of the boat suited his humor. He did not find it true
that misery loves company. At least to human beings he preferred his
companions of Lone Lake--the beaver building his home among the reeds,
the kingfisher,