Anger took the place of perplexity in him. The women he saw in the streets and in the doors of the houses were such women as his own woman Clara. They had married men--“no better than myself,” he told himself, growing bold. They had married men and something had happened to them. Something was settled. They could live in streets and in houses. Their marriages had been real marriages and he had a right to a real marriage. It was not too much to expect out of life. “Clara has a right to that also,” he thought and his mind began to idealize the marriages of men and women. “On every hand here I see them, the neat, well-dressed, handsome women like Clara. How happy they are! “Their feathers have been ruffled though,” he thought angrily. “It was with them as with that bird I saw being pursued through the trees. There has been pursuit and a pretense of trying to escape. There has been an effort made that was not an effort, but feathers have been ruffled here.” When his thoughts had driven him into a half desperate mood Hugh went out of the streets of bright, ugly, freshly built, freshly painted and furnished houses, and down into the town. Several men homeward bound at the end of their day of work called to him. “I hope you are thinking of buying or building up our way,” they said heartily. * * * * * It began to rain and darkness came, but Hugh did not go home to Clara. It did not seem to him that he could spend another night in the house with her, lying awake, hearing the little noises of the night, waiting--for courage. He could not sit under the lamp through another evening pretending to read. He could not go with Clara up the stairs only to leave her with a cold “good-night” at the top of the stairs. Hugh went up the Medina Road almost to the house and then retraced his steps and got into a field. There was a low swampy place in which the water came up over his shoetops, and after he had crossed that there was a field overgrown with a tangle of vines. The night became so dark that he could see nothing and darkness reigned over his spirit. For hours he walked blindly, but it did not occur to him that as he waited, hating the waiting, Clara also waited; that for her also it was a time of trial and uncertainty. To him it seemed her course was simple and easy. She was a white pure thing--waiting--for what? for courage to come in to him in order that an assault be made upon her whiteness and purity. That was the only answer to the question Hugh could find within himself. The destruction of what was white and pure was a necessary thing in life. It was a thing men must do in order that life go on. As for women, they must be white and pure--and wait. * * * * * Filled with inward resentment Hugh at last did go to the farmhouse. Wet and with dragging, heavy feet he turned out of the Medina Road to find the house dark and apparently deserted.