of the willows that fringed the field; by the sensuous curving of the twisted ash that formed a gateway to the little grove of sapling oaks where fauns and satyrs lurked to play in the moonlight before Pagan altars; and by the cloaking darkness, next, of the copse of stunted pines, close gathered each to each, where hooded figures stalked behind an awful cross.  The episode with the children seemed to have opened me like a knife.  The whole Place rushed at me.

I suspect this synthesis of many moods produced in me that climax of loathing and disgust which made me feel the limit of bearable emotion had been reached, so that I made straight to find Frances in order to convince her that at any rate I must leave.  For, although this was our last day in the house, and we had arranged to go next day, the dread was in me that she would still find some persuasive reason for staying on.  And an unexpected incident then made my dread unnecessary.  The front door was open and a cab stood in the drive; a tall, elderly man was gravely talking in the hall with the parlor maid we called the Grenadier.  He held a piece of paper in his hand.  “I have called to see the house,” I heard him say, as I ran up the stairs to Frances, who was peering like an inquisitive child over the banisters....

“Yes,” she told me with a sigh, I know not whether of resignation or relief, “the house is to be let or sold.  Mabel has decided.  Some Society or other, I believe—­”

I was overjoyed:  this made our leaving right and possible.  “You never told me, Frances!”

“Mabel only heard of it a few days ago.  She told me herself this morning.  It is a chance, she says.  Alone she cannot get it ‘straight’.

“Defeat?” I asked, watching her closely.

“She thinks she has found a way out.  It’s not a family, you see, it’s a Society, a sort of Community—­they go in for thought—­”

“A Community!” I gasped.  “You mean religious?”

She shook her head.  “Not exactly,” she said smiling, “but some kind of association of men and women who want a headquarters in the country—­a place where they can write and meditate—­think—­mature their plans and all the rest—­I don’t know exactly what.”

“Utopian dreamers?” I asked, yet feeling an immense relief come over me as I heard.  But I asked in ignorance, not cynically.  Frances would know.  She knew all this kind of thing.

“No, not that exactly,” she smiled.  “Their teachings are grand and simple—­old as the world too, really—­the basis of every religion before men’s minds perverted them with their manufactured creeds—­”