He felt in a pocket the wallet containing his ticket to California and the generous sum added by his father. There must be no more delay in arriving at his western destination! His excursion with Hartmann had been a grave error; he saw it clearly now, one of those faults--so fatally easy for him to commit--which, if his life was to spell success, if he was to come finally into his heritage of joy, he must scrupulously avoid. In the future he would drive directly, safely, toward his goal; he would become part of that orderly pattern of life plotted in streets and staid occupations: at the end of day he would return to his small, carefully-tended garden to weed and water, and sit with Eliza on his portico--a respectable, an authentic, member of society. On Sunday morning they would go to the Episcopal Church, they would join the sober, festivally-garbed procession moving toward the faint thunder of the organ. And, at dinner, he would carve the roast. Thus, quietly, they would grow old, grey, together. They would have a number of children--all girls, he decided. Imperceptibly the morning was born about him, faint shadows grew under the hedges, the sweet, querulous note of a robin sounded from the sparkling sod. A wind stirred, as immaculate, as dewly fresh, as though it were the first breath blown upon a new world of virginal and lyric beauty. The molten gold of the sun welled out of the east and spilled over the wooded hills and meadows; the violet mists drawn over the swales and streams dissolved; Anthony met a boy driving cows to pasture. XXIX HE rapidly overtook a bent and doggedly tramping figure; no common wanderer, he recognized, as he drew nearer. The others decent suit was eminently presentable, his felt hat brushed, his shoes comparatively new. He turned upon Anthony a countenance as expressionless, as darkly-stained, as a chipped and rusted effigy of iron; deep lines fell back across the dingy cheeks; his lipless mouth was, apparently, another such line; and his eyes, deeply sunk in the skull, were the eyes of a dead man. Yet they were not blind; they saw. He halted, and surveyed Anthony with a lowered, searching curiosity, clenching with a strained and surprising force the knob of a black stick. Anthony met his scrutiny with the salutation of youth and the road; but the other made no reply; his countenance was as blank as though no word had been spoken. Then a sudden flicker of hot light burned in the dull depths of his gaze, his worn face quivered with a swift malignancy, an energy of suspicion, of hatred, that touched Anthony's heart with a cold finger of fear. “What's your name?” he demanded, his entire being strained in an agony of attention. Anthony informed him with scrupulous exactitude. He seemed, for a moment, to doubt Anthony's identity; then the fire died, his eyes grew blank; his grasp relaxed on the stick, and, bent, dogged, he continued on his way.