A light shone from the window across the way. He was still at work, then. He ought not to sit up so late. No wonder he was looking so worn out lately. He ought to have some one to look after him. He never thought of himself. He never had time. She would talk to him about keeping such late hours—if she were not going back to God’s country next week. Only next week! It was too good to be true,—and yet she sighed. But there was no other way. She ought never to have come. She was not big enough. He, too, had told her she was not the kind. Doubtless, he knew. And she didn’t belong to anybody here. She was glad she was going back to where she belonged to somebody. She would never go away again. Was that Gordon passing back and forth in front of the window? Something must be troubling him. Was it because Jesse Black had escaped? But what a glorious vindication of his belief in the man’s guilt had that afternoon been given! Nothing lacked there. Why should he be sorry? Sometimes, she had thought he might care,—that day crossing the river for instance; but he was so reserved—he never said—and it was much, much better that he did not care, now that she was going away and would never come back. There was nothing in all the world that could make her come back to this big, bleak, lonesome land where she belonged to nobody. But she was sorry for him. He looked sad and lonely. He didn’t belong to anybody here, either, yet he wasn’t going to run away as she was. Well, but he was a man, and men were different. And now she noticed that his head had sunk down onto his arms. How still he sat! The minutes passed away. Still he sat motionless, his face buried. It was dark. The yellow gleam streaming out of the window only served to make the surrounding darkness denser. The lamp on the table cast a pale circle immediately in front of the office. There was no other flicker of light on the street. Into this circle there moved a shadow. It retreated,—advanced again,—glided back into obscurity. Was it something alive, or did the moving of the lamp cause the shadows to thus skip about? But the lamp had not been moved. It burned steadily in the same position. The relaxed form of the unconscious man was still bent over the table. Nothing had changed within. Probably some dog locked out for the night had trotted within the radius of light. Maybe a cotton-tail had hopped into the light for a second. Louise did not know whether rabbits ever came into the town, but it was likely they did. It might have been one of the strayed cattle wandering about in search of food. That was the most probable supposition of all. Of course it might have been only her imagination. The little pinch of fright engendered of the moving shadow and the eerie hour passed away. Her eyes grew pensive again. How still it was! Had Gordon fallen asleep? He lay so quietly. Had he grieved himself into slumber as a girl would do? No—men were not like that.