gray house with his purchase, peered past its
stone rampart before going in. His eye softened in anticipation of
welcome. Surely no angel half so lovely was ever hidden at the heart of
night.

The kitchen was empty. So were all the rooms of the house, he soon
enough found out. Not a sound but that of the steeple clock on the
kitchen shelf, waddling on at its imperfect gait, loud for a few
seconds, and then low.

Jethro went outside. The stillness rising through the blue dusk was
marvelous, perfect. But an icy misgiving raced through his frame. He
began to walk faster, scanning the ground. At first in his search he did
not call aloud, perhaps because all his intercourse with her had been
silent, as if she were indeed only the voice of conscience in a radiant
guise. And when at length he did cry out, it was only as agony may wring
from the lips a cry to God.

He called on her in broken phrases to come back. Let her only come, she
might be sure of forgiveness. He was an old man now, and asked for
nothing but a corner in her house. Then again, he had here a little
surprise for her. Ah! Had she thought of that? Come; he would not open
the package without a kiss from her finger ends.

He hurried forward, hoarse breathing. A note of terrible joy cracked his
voice when the thought came to him that she was hiding mischievously.
That was it--she was hiding--just fooling her old father. Come; it
wouldn't do to be far from his side on these dark nights. The sea was
wide and uncertain--wide and uncertain.

But he remembered that ominous purchase of the pearls by Deep-water
Peter, and shivered. His voice passed into a wail. Little by little he
stumbled through the hemlock grove, beseeching each tree to yield up out
of obdurate shadow that beloved form, to vouchsafe him the lisp of
flying feet over dead beech leaves. But the trees stood mournfully
apart, unanswering, and rooted deep.

Now he was out upon the pitted crags, calling madly. She should have all
his possessions, and the man into the bargain. Yes, his books, his
silver spoons, that portrait of a man playing on the violin which she
had loved.

With a new hope, he pleaded with her to speak to him, if only once, to
cry out. Had he not said she would, one day? Yes, yes, one little cry of
love, to show that she was not so voiceless as people said.--

He stood with awful expectation, a thick hand bending the lobe of his
ear forward. Then through silver silences a mutteri