"You'll pardon my coming in like this, but when my knocking didn't raise anybody I concluded that no one lived here. I wanted to know the shortest road to Cape Girardeau. I wanted to get there before dark, but now, of course----" As I paused, the man spoke, in exactly the cultivated tone I had expected, and with a mellow accent as unmistakably Southern as the house he inhabited. "Rather, you must pardon me for not answering your knock more promptly. I live in a very retired way, and am not usually expecting visitors. At first I thought you were a mere curiosity-seeker. When you knocked again I started to answer, but I am not well and have to move very slowly, owing to spinal neuritis--very troublesome case. "As for your getting to town before dark--you can't do that. The road you are on isn't the best or shortest way. What you must do is to take the first real road to your left after you leave the gate. There are three or four cart-paths you can ignore, but you can't mistake the real road because of the large willow tree on the right just opposite it. "When once you've turned, keep on past two roads and turn to the right along the third. After that----" Perplexed by these elaborate directions, confusing indeed to a total stranger, I could not help interrupting. "Please, how can I follow all these clues in pitch-darkness, without ever having been near here before, and with only an indifferent pair of headlights to tell me what is and what isn't a road? Besides, I think it's going to storm pretty soon, and my car is an open one. It looks as if I were in a bad fix if I want to get to Cape Girardeau tonight. The fact is, I don't think I'd better try. I don't like to impose, but in view of the circumstances, do you suppose you could put me up for the night? I won't be any trouble. Just let me have a corner to sleep in till daylight, and I'm all right. I can leave the car in the road where it is; wet weather won't hurt it." As I made my sudden request I could see the old man's face lose its former expression of quiet resignation and take on an odd, surprised look. "Sleep _here_?" He seemed so astonished at my request that I repeated it. "Yes, why not? I assure you I won't be any trouble. What else can I do? I'm a stranger hereabouts, these roads are a labyrinth in the dark, and I'll wager it'll be raining torrents inside of an hour----" This time it was my host's turn to interrupt, and as he did so I could feel a peculiar quality in his deep, musical voice. "A stranger--of course you must be, else you wouldn't think of sleeping here; wouldn't think of coming here at all. People don't come here nowadays."