She took the hand and held it for a moment. "Joe," she began, "let's be friends." She was forcing herself to talk. "I've made some mistakes but--I want everybody to like me here--especially you. You understand things, and you will overlook some of the things that have happened?" Spectres of uncharitableness were disturbing her and she sought to be shriven. He thought she was alluding to Claybrook and moved uneasily so that she dropped his hand. "Surely. Surely I will. Good-night," he said again. Then he turned and walked briskly away. He had got but ten yards or so when out of the stillness came the sound again. He paused there on the sidewalk and listened. A faint, musical, metallic clang came surging toward him in clear beating waves. It sounded as if it were miles away, and the echo lingered pulsing on the silence. Slowly it died away to a whisper and then he heard distant shouts and footsteps echoing hollow. Men were running toward him down the brick sidewalk, their voices sounding nearer. At the corner they turned and went, westward, the sound of them growing fainter and fainter. He looked back, and at the gate he could see a shadow standing there waiting. There was a faint nimbus about the head and the face, turned toward him, was in the darkness. He paused a moment in indecision and then turned and walked rapidly down the street westward, toward the camp. CHAPTER XIX Mary Louise walked back to the house. At the side porch she paused and looked behind her. High overhead sailed the moon, a day or two past the first half. There was a tremulous movement in the leaves of the maples along the sidewalk, producing an indistinct, vibratory shimmer and shadow. By contrast the patches of darkness were jet black; the overhanging portico of the house was as yawning as a cavern. She listened, stood, her head bent slightly forward, listening. Not a sound could be heard. The sharp, crisp clack of Joe's footsteps had been swallowed up by the distance. She could hear the sound of her own breathing. An uneasiness came gradually upon her, a vague sort of dread of being left alone, entirely alone. How aloof he had seemed; how aloof everything seemed, and unreal! Those sinister trees waving there without a breath of wind; the lowering shadows of the summerhouse and the barn; that greasy moonlight that came slipping up to the very edge of the porch and lay there fearful and cold--were they all remembering her scorn and coming back to mock her loneliness?