I could offer little else than Mark Twain's memorable diary on shipboard: "Got up, washed, and went to bed." She must come back, that is all. I don't know where she is, nor how long she will be away. These things I will find out. Here I have wandered on much like a maundering old man, without first setting down the adventure of the day, and then commenting, if so inclined. I beg pardon. To-night I really am not fit, and should not attempt to write. But I have begun; inaction would be galling, so I will continue. Was I astir early this morning? The first gray arrow, barbed with silver and feathered with gloom, had not found my small window ere I was up with a snatch of song welling from my throat, and hurrying for the big washtub back of the kitchen which does the duty of a bathtub in civilization. I had never been so completely happy since I was a boy on my grandad's farm. I even wanted to whistle while I was shaving, I was so full of song and laughter. Cooking breakfast was a jolly lark; eating it a delicious pastime. Then I was gone like a deer breaking cover, the door to the Lodge open to its fullest extent. She knew the truth, and I might even meet her coming to me. As I ran easily through the forest on the now familiar way, I noticed that my exuberant spirits began to decline. A foreboding of some disaster crept stealthily and steadily upon me, until I actually had a chilly sensation down my spine, and a woeful sinking in my breast. This phenomenon, in common with many others attendant upon our daily life, cannot be explained. I really suffered until I came in sight of the roof which sheltered my beloved; then, as I mounted to the tree-bridge with feet suddenly grown leaden, a numb calm gripped me. I stood and leaned against the section of the root-wadded disk which projected above the butt of the oak, little spiders of feeling scurrying out all over my chest from a center above my heart. No signs of morning activity greeted my despairing gaze. The house was silent and lifeless as the trunk beneath my feet. No blue wood smoke curled up from the kitchen chimney. Not even the dog was visible. Only from the comb of the chicken house a lonesome guinea fowl squawked harshly. I dragged myself forward. When I reached the house I went in a mechanical way to each door and window in turn. They were fastened, but I discovered the dining room window was without a shade or curtain, and to a pane of glass here I pressed my face, shielding my eyes from the light with my hands. Slowly the interior took shape. A table covered with oilcloth; a few low-backed, shuck-bottomed chairs; a smaller table against the wall holding what appeared to be a jar of honey; a safe with tin paneled doors stuck full of holes in some kind of design; a fly-brush in the corner made of newspaper slit into strips and fastened to the end of a piece of bamboo fishing-pole. A bare floor, well scrubbed. I saw no one; I heard