He went up to his room, packed up his clothes, and jammed his heap of scribbled papers in on top of them; then he leaned for a moment in the window and looked out to the hills. Up there, behind that motionless mask of trees, lived the girl with whom he had wandered in another world. He would have liked to see her again, to be with her just once on those rocks facing the sunrise… . Well … and how was he going to get his things down to the station? He guessed he was strong enough by this time to lug them down the lane to the trolley … He started downstairs with the suitcase and the unwieldy old bag into which his mother, at the last moment, had crammed a lot of useless stuff. The sound of the bags bumping against the stairs brought Mrs. Tracy to the kitchen door. She stared at Vance, surprised: "Where are you going?"

Vance said he was going to New York. She looked a little frightened. "Oh, but you must wait till tomorrow. I didn't mean—"

"I'd rather go today," he answered coldly.

She wiped her hands on her apron. "There's no one to help you to carry your things to the trolley. I didn't mean—"

"I guess I'll go," Vance repeated. He walked a little way down the garden path and then turned back to Mrs. Tracy. "I'd like to thank you for your kindness while I've been here," he said; and she stammered again: "But you don't understand … I didn't mean … "

"But I do," said Vance. He shouldered his bags and walked to the gate. Mrs. Tracy stood crying in the porch, and then hurried in and shut the door behind her. Vance trudged along the rutty lane, measuring his weakness by the way the weight of his bags increased with every step. The perspiration was streaming down his face when he reached the corner of the turnpike, and he sat down under the same thorn tree where, so short a time ago, he had waited in the summer darkness for Halo Spear. Even the memory of that day was obscured for him by what had happened since. He did not even like to think of Miss Spear's touch on his arm as she turned him toward the sunrise, or of the way she had looked as she sat by the pool leaning her head on her hand and listening while he recited his poems to her. All that seemed to belong to the far-off world of the hills, the world he had voluntarily forsaken, he didn't know why… .