As they retraced their steps the broad, yellow glow of the sunset deepened behind them, and before them burned on the windows of houses that climbed the hillsides still farther on. The water and its low-lying shores--flat lands where silver creeks lay embedded like the metal wires in cloisonné ware--were already veiled in a soft, purplish twilight which exhaled a creeping chilliness. At a high point, unobstructed by buildings, they turned to watch the sun drop into the sea. For a moment it seemed to hesitate, resting on the horizon like a spinning copper disk; then it slipped out of sight, and the darkness rushed up from unexpected places and swept over the prospect, blotting out all distinctions of color. Only in the west there was a great gold radiance, against which little red clouds floated like bits of raveled silk. John Gault, as was his Sunday custom, dined with his brother's family. After dinner he left early, before the usual callers appeared--generally young men come to bow the knee at Letitia's shrine. For a space he walked down the street with a quick, decided step. Then, of a sudden, he stopped, and stood looking at the pavement, uncertain and irresolute. The car which had borne him to the other side of town on the last evening that he had dined with the Mortimer Gaults glided across the avenue some blocks farther down. He heard its bell and saw the long funnel of light from its lantern pierce the darkness before it. He stood for a moment watching it, then turned in the opposite direction and stopped. As he hesitated, he heard in the distance the bell of the next car. With a smothered ejaculation, he wheeled about and ran for it. He caught the car and swung himself to a front seat. "Kismet!" he said to himself, as he sank down panting. III At this period of his history the colonel's exchequer must have been in a particularly depleted condition, for it was not a week after John Gault's visit that he again appeared at the office, and this time requested a loan of forty dollars. Had the colonel, during this interview, exhibited some of that shamefaced and conscious embarrassment that the most hardened borrowers will show, his benefactor would have felt less miserably ill at ease. But the old man was as suave and affably benignant as if he were conferring a long-solicited favor. That there was something of shame in his barefaced assaults upon the purse of his daughter's friend seemed an idea that had never entered his mind. No disconcerting scruples marred his appreciation of his sudden good fortune. Pride was evidently a possession of which he was as poorly supplied as he was with the tangible goods of this world.