As he crossed the bridge over Stevens Run, he heard a splashing at the brookside, then once more only the slow tinkle of water from soaked timbers: he knew that another dun shadow had stumbled into the darkness at his approach … someone crawled over the gate into the pasture east of Mrs. Knouse’s property before he went past. Like an old comb, the piece of an army had drawn itself down this highway, and its broken teeth lay scattered behind.

Dan’s front door was standing open. He remembered that he had locked no doors when he went away; out west, there was not a cabin on his prairies which could be locked when the owner was absent, and the acquisitive, defending fear of this town had not yet marked him. Stragglers: they might take silver … somewhere in the house was silver. Pentland Bale’s gold studs; his watches and books and the hidden, filigree jewelry which Dan’s mother had once worn … He pushed aside the light frame of the mosquito-bar and stood peering into the black hall.

“Dan,” Irene Fanning whispered.

She had been waiting for him, alone in that house with all its haunts. Mrs. Fanning. It struggled toward his lips: he thought of saying that before it seemed natural and right to call her name.

“I’m sitting on the stairs. Here. I’ve been waiting.”

His hands hunted for her. “One minute. I’ll make a light.”

“No.” And then he realized that her voice was swollen with some peculiar emotion; it was scarcely the voice he was learning to know so well. “Close the shutters first.”

He went into the library, feeling for the dusty shutters which had not been closed for a long time. One after another he drew the slatted pairs together. Four windows. Two at the front, two on the side facing the Knouse place. The corner of the big desk drove itself against his hip. “There’s a candle here, somewhere,” he called, and he could hear her rustling into the room, feeling her way, arms fending out before her. The match crackled, its dripping sparks scorched the carpet. There was the oily flicker of dead candle-wick yielding itself to flame.

The woman said, “It was raining the first time I was here, too. Wasn’t it?” Across shining chair-backs, she stared at him. She had a dark cloak caught around her shoulders, the goods still speckled with raindrops, and the puckered hood hanging loosely down her back. Beneath the cloak he could see the same black silk which she had worn when first he met her.

“Raining,” Dan echoed. “Yes. Not like this—it was a storm.” He demanded, shrilly, “Is anything wrong?”

“I had to see you. There is something—”