Then every afternoon he walked over the Ridge to the little river in the valley, carrying a book in his pocket, and his fishing-rod as a sort of excuse, and poling an old flatboat down-stream to a shady spot under the trees, propped his rod in place, where by a miracle he occasionally caught a perch or bass, sat looking idly into the water, the brim of an old felt hat turned down about his eyes.  One day, near the week’s end, as he was lounging thus, his eye was attracted by a headline in a bit of newspaper in which he had wrapped his bait box to save his pocket.  It was a semi-local paper from town, one that his mother took, but which they seldom either of them read, and the date was three days back.  He turned it over idly, pausing as he did so to pull up the line which was being jerked violently, but only by a mud eel.  Why did he return again to the scrap of paper when he had freed his hook?  His eyes caught strange words, and his hands began to tremble as he read.  It was the condensed report of the Latham divorce that was now going the rounds of the journals.

He paused a moment, then folded the paper, put it in his pocket, poled the boat with vigorous strokes to the landing-place, and strode through the woods and across the cornfields homeward, his heart beating tumultuously until he seemed almost to be struggling with suffocation.

He stopped at the barn and harnessed a horse to the old buggy, passing by the new one that he had recently ordered from town, and then went into the house, where, taking off his slouchy fishing clothes, he put on the same ceremonious afternoon wear that he would have worn at Northbridge if going to call, put Sylvia’s handkerchief in his inner pocket, and went in search of his mother.

He found her in the kitchen, tying the covers upon countless jars of currant jam.  She looked surprised to see him back at such an hour, but said nothing, as Esther Nichols was close by, employed in wiping off the jars.

“I’m going over to Oaklands for a drive,” he said, handing her the scrap of newspaper with a gesture that meant silence.

“Shall I wait supper for you, or will you be late?” she said, touching his hand with a gesture almost of entreaty.

“I may be late, but—­yes, you may wait supper,” he replied, looking back at her in going out, as if he wanted to carry the picture well forward in his mind, against any forgetfulness.

The miles between Pine Ridge and the Bluffs seemed endless.  He had at first intended to go to Oaklands village to see Miss Lavinia and gather such tidings as he could of the calamity that had overtaken Sylvia; for he never for a moment questioned but that the girl, who had been entirely straightforward, even in days of college pranks, should so regard the matter.  But as he drove along, and the very fact that he was moving toward a definite end calmed him and clarified his judgment, he resolved to go directly to Sylvia herself.  He would certainly do this if he had seen the announcement of her parents’ deaths; then why not now, when their love that gave her birth was officially and publicly declared extinct?