Alix isn't the sort to forget. Maybe Strong has
gotten over it and not she. It's darned aggravating, that's what
it is. There must be some good reason why she's never married. I
wonder if she's still keen about him. This talk of Charlie Webster's
may be plain bunk. If she hates him,--why? That's the question.
WHY does she hate him? There must be some reason beside that debt
he owed to old Windom. Gad, I wish I could have seen that letter
he wrote her when he sent the cheque. Well, anyhow, it's up to me
to get busy. That's sure!"
His walk took him past the Windomville Cemetery and up the gravel
turnpike leading to the city. Alix had traversed this road an hour
or so earlier. Swinging around a bend in the highway, he came in
view of the abandoned farmhouse half a mile ahead.
It was a familiar object by this time, for he had passed it many
times, not only on his solitary walks but on several occasions with
Alix. The desolate house, with its weed-grown yard, its dilapidated
paling fence, its atmosphere of decay, had always possessed
a certain fascination for him. He secretly confessed to a queer
little sensation as of awe whenever he looked upon the empty,
green-shuttered house. It suggested death. More than once he had
paused in the road below the rickety gate to gaze intently at the
closed windows, or to scrutinize the tangled mass of weeds and
rose bushes that almost hid the porch and its approach from view.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175