The sun, over the Adirondack foot-hills, hung above bands of smouldering cloud.  Presently it dipped into them, hanging triple-ringed, like Saturn on fire.

“It’s time for you to go,” he said in an altered voice; and she turned to find him standing and ready to aid her.

A little pale with the realisation that the end had come so soon, she rose and walked slowly back to where his horse stood munching leaves.

“Well, Virginia—­good-bye, little girl.  You’ll be all right before long.”

There was no humour left in his voice now; no mocking in his dark gaze.

She raised her eyes to his in vague distress.

“Where are the others?” he asked.  “Oh, up on those rocks?  Yes, I see the smoke of their fire....  Say good-bye to them for me—­not now—­some day.”

She did not understand him; he hesitated, smiled, and took her in his arms.

“Good-bye, dear,” he said.

“Good-bye.”

They kissed.

After she was half-way to the top of the rocks he mounted his horse.  She did not look back.

“She’s a good little sport,” he said, smiling; and, gathering bridle, turned back into the forest.  This time he neither sang nor whistled as he rode through the red splendour of the western sun.  But he was very busy listening.

There was plenty to hear, too; wood-thrushes were melodious in the late afternoon light; infant crows cawed from high nests unseen in the leafy tree-tops; the stream’s thin, silvery song threaded the forest quiet, accompanying him as he rode home.

Home?  Yes—­if this silent house where he dismounted could be called that.  The place was very still.  Evidently the servants had taken advantage of their master’s and mistress’s absence to wander out into the woods.  Some of the stablemen had the dogs out, too; there was nobody in sight to take his horse, so he led the animal to the stables and found there a lad to relieve him.

Then he retraced his steps to the house and entered the deserted garden where pearl-tinted spikes of iris perfumed the air and great masses of peonies nodded along borders banked deep under the long wall.  A few butterflies still flitted in the golden radiance, but already that solemn harbinger of sunset, the garden toad, had emerged from leafy obscurity into the gravel path, and hopped heavily forward as Malcourt passed by.

The house—­nothing can be as silent as an empty house—­echoed his spurred tread from porch to stairway.  He went up to the first landing, not knowing why, then roamed aimlessly through, wandering from room to room, idly, looking on familiar things as though they were strange—­strange, but uninteresting.

Upstairs and down, in, around, and about he drifted, quiet as a cat, avoiding only his wife’s bedroom.  He had never entered it since their marriage; he did not care to do so now, though the door stood wide.  And, indifferent, he turned without even a glance, and traversing the hall, descended the stairs to the library.