They presently turned off the main road, and entered a certain gate.  Beyond the gate was an old, overgrown garden, and beyond that a house—­a broad, shabby house; and beyond that again an orchard, and barns and outhouses.

John took a key from his pocket, and they opened the front door.  Roses, looking in the back door, across a bare, wide stretch of hall, smiled at them.  The sunlight fell everywhere in clear squares on the bare floors.  It brightened the big kitchen, and glinted in the pantry, still faintly redolent of apples stored on shelves.  It crept into the attic, and touched the scored casement where years ago a dozen children had recorded their heights and ages.

Margaret and John came out on the porch again, and she turned to him with brimming eyes.  It suddenly swept over her, with a thankfulness too deep for realization, that this would be her world.  She would sit on this wide porch, waiting for him in the summer afternoons; she would go about from room to room on the happy, commonplace journeys of house-keeping; would keep the fire blazing against John’s return.  And in the years to come perhaps there would be other voices about the old house; there would be little shining heads to keep the sunlight always there.

“Well, Margaret, do you like it?” said John, his arm about her, his face radiant with pride and happiness.

“Like it I” said Margaret.  “Why, it’s home!”

IV

So the Kirbys disappeared from the world.  Sometimes a newcomer at Margaret’s club would ask about the great portrait that hung over the library fireplace—­the portrait of a cold-eyed woman with beautiful pearls about her beautiful throat.  Then the history of poor, dear Margaret Kirby would be reviewed—­its triumphs, its glories, Margaret’s brilliant marriage, her beauty, her wit.  These only led to the final tragic scenes that had ended it all.

“And now she is grubbing away dear knows where!” her biographer would say carelessly.  “Absolutely, they might as well be buried!”

But about seven years after the Kirbys’ disappearance, it happened that four of Margaret’s old intimates—­the T. Illington Frarys and the Josiah Dunnings—­were taking a little motor trip in the Dunnings’ big car, through the northern part of the State.  Just outside the little village of Applebridge, something mysterious and annoying happened to the car, which stopped short, and after some discussion it was decided that the ladies should wait therein, while the men walked back in search of help.

Mrs. Dunning and Mrs. Frary, settling themselves comfortably in the tonneau for a long wait, puzzled themselves a little over the name of Applebridge.

“I can just remember hearing of it,” said Mrs. Dunning, sleepily, “but when or where or how I don’t know.”

They opened their books.  A brilliant May afternoon throbbed, hummed, sparkled all about them.  The big wheels of the motor were deep in grass and blossoms.  On either side of the road, fields were gay with bees and butterflies.  Larks looped the blackberry-vines with quick flights; mustard-tops showed their pale gold under the apple-blossoms.