For an hour he drove without thought of where he was going. Detail after detail of the affair presented itself to his mind in endless repetition. It had been a humiliating experience. The old woman's vulgarity; Macomber's stolid, iron hand clearing the air, like brushing trash from his doorstep; the consciousness of prying eyes at that upstairs window! "I've been a feeble cuckoo," he thought. "Mighta supposed two years in the army would have taught me better'n that. Played me for a good thing as long as it lasted and then the old lady called a showdown. Hawkins must stand in with the old lady. Poor Hawkins!" He discovered that he was rolling along on the Bloomfield pike about two miles from town. "Funny how these hard-workin' folks sink all their money in a butterfly like that. Bet she uses up the meat bill every month. And look what she gets out of it. Bet she's twenty-six if she's a day. And all she got was Hawkins. I must have looked good to her for a day or two." Bitterly he waited at the grade crossing while "Number Twenty-seven" went lumbering by. It shrieked a high, exasperating whistle as it passed, exulting in its trembling, shaking twenty-five miles per hour. On he drove. Hot blasts of air came crushing about him, with the sunlight shimmering white hot on the bare, dry pike. There was much dust from countless automobiles hurrying by in both directions. He was constantly churned up in clouds of fine white particles thrown back at him by passing tires, hurrying on in a mad drive to get somewhere. He was suddenly unbearably hot. But he drove on blindly. About five miles out he came to a shady lane. It ran like a cool brown gash between arching trees, off from the pike to the right. Away in the distance the fields dipped and rose to the skyline, a golden waste with here and there a patch of withering green. The lane was irresistible. He swung suddenly into it and was caught in a shifting, squirming quagmire of fine yellow sand. For a hundred yards he struggled on, with the car careening back and forth across the road and with much churning and slipping of tires. His shoulders began to ache and he wearied of the effort. It was a useless waste of energy. Spying a huge tree standing on the fence line on up ahead, he drew up to it and stopped in its shade. There was barely room for any one to pass on the other side of him. For a moment he sat and dully stared out across the landscape. Then he got out of the car, climbed over the fence and threw himself down on the ground in the shade of the big tree.