“Or had any message—any news of him?” “Absolutely nothing. I’ve just sat and remembered his face.” My perplexity grew. “But surely you can’t imagine.... If you’re as frightened as that you must have some other reason for it,” I insisted. She shook her head wearily. “It’s the having none that frightens me. Oh, do come!” “You think his leaving in this way means that he’s in some kind of trouble?” “In dreadful trouble.” “And you don’t know why?” “No more than you do!” she repeated. I pondered, trying to avoid her entreating eyes. “But at this hour—come, do consider! I don’t know Cranch so awfully well. How will he take it? You say he made a scene yesterday about that silly business of the architect’s going to his house without leave....” “That’s just it. I feel as if his going away might be connected with that.” “But then he’s mad!” I exclaimed. “No; not mad. Only—desperate.” I stood irresolute. It was evident that I had to do with a woman whose nerves were in fiddle-strings. What had reduced them to that state I could not conjecture, unless, indeed, she were keeping back the vital part of her confession. But that, queerly enough, was not what I suspected. For some reason I felt her to be as much in the dark over the whole business as I was; and that added to the strangeness of my dilemma. “Do you know in the least what you’re going for?” I asked at length. “No, no, no—but come!” “If he’s there, he’ll kick us out, most likely; kick _me_ out, at any rate.” She did not answer; I saw that in her anguish she was past speaking. “Wait till I get my coat,” I said. She took my arm, and side by side we hurried in the rain through the shuttered village. As we passed the Selwick house I saw a light burning in old Miss Selwick’s bedroom window. It was on the tip of my tongue to say: “Hadn’t we better stop and ask Aunt Lucilla what’s wrong? She knows more about Cranch than any of us!” Then I remembered Cranch’s expression the last time Aunt Lucilla’s legend of the hobby-horse had been mentioned before him—the day we were planning the jumble sale—and a sudden shiver checked my pleasantry. “He looked then as he did when he passed me in the doorway yesterday,” I thought; and I had a vision of my ancient relative, sitting there propped up in her bed and looking quietly into the unknown while all the village slept. Was she aware, I wondered, that we were passing under her window at that moment, and did she know what would await us when we reached our destination? V Mrs. Durant, in her thin slippers, splashed on beside me through the mud. “Oh,” she exclaimed, stopping short with a gasp, “look at the lights!” We had crossed the green, and were groping our way under the dense elm-shadows, and there before us stood the Cranch house, all its windows illuminated. It was the only house in the village except Miss Selwick’s that was not darkened and shuttered.