Elim, carrying the cake and bottle, followed over a grassy road between tangles of blackberry bushes. On either hand neglected fields held a sparse tangle of last year's weeds; beyond, trees closed in the perspective. The sun had passed the zenith, and the shadows of walnut trees fell across the road. Elim's face was grim, a dark tide rose about him, enveloping his heart, bothering his vision. He wanted to address something final to the slim girl in black before him, something now, before she was forever lost in the gabble of her relatives; but he could think of nothing appropriate, expressive of the tumult within him. His misery deepened with every step, grew into a bitterness of rebellion that almost forced an incoherent reckless speech. Rosemary Roselle didn't turn, she didn't linger, there were a great many things that she might say. The colored woman was positively hurrying forward. A great loneliness swept over him. He had not, he thought drearily, been made for joy. “It's queer there's no one about,” Rosemary Roselle observed. They reached the imposing pillars of an entrance--the wooden gate was chained, and they were obliged to turn aside and search for an opening in a great mock-orange hedge. Before them a wide sweep of lawn led up to a formal dark façade; a tanbark path was washed, the grass ragged and uncut. Involuntarily they quickened their pace. Elim saw that towering brown pillars rose to the roof of the dwelling and that low wings extended on either hand. Before the portico a stiffly formal garden lay in withered neglect. The flower beds, circled with masoned rims and built up like wired bouquets, held only twisted and broken stems. A faint odor of wet plaster and dead vegetation rose to meet them. On the towering wall of the house every window was tightly shuttered. The place bore a silent and melancholy air of desertion. The girl gave a dismayed gasp. Elim hastily placed his load on the steps and, mounting, beat upon the door. Only a dull echo answered. Dust fell from the paneling upon his head. “Maybe they have shut up the front for protection,” he suggested. He made his way to the rear; all was closed. Through the low limbs of apple trees he could see a double file of small sad brick quarters for the slaves. They, too, were empty. The place was without a living being. He stood, undecided, when suddenly he heard Rosemary Roselle calling with an acute note of fear. He ran through the binding grass back to the garden. “Elim Meikeljohn!” She stumbled forward to meet him. “Oh, Elim,” she cried; “there's no one in the world----” A sob choked her utterance. He fell on his knees before her: “There's always me.” She sank in a fragrant heap into his arms. Elim Meikeljohn laughed over her shoulder at his entire worldly goods on the steps--the fragmentary fruit cake and a bottle of champagne. Here they are lost on the dimming mirror of the past. THE THRUSH IN THE HEDGE I