"She didn't a couple of days ago," said the Doctor, gruffly. "She asked my advice about you. I told her to take you if she wanted you, and she said she didn't know whether she did or didn't." "She seems to have found out since then," said Wade, dryly. "It must have been sudden, then. Look here, was there any quarrel? Any misunderstanding?" "None. I haven't spoken to her since Saturday night." "Well, it beats me," said the Doctor, leaning over to knock the ashes from his pipe. "I'm plumb certain she cares for you, and just as certain that you're making a mistake by running away." He stood up and scowled fiercely at the moon. "Well, I must be off. I'll see you to-morrow. You're not going until afternoon, you said?" "I leave here about two," said Wade. "I shall spend to-morrow night in Boston and take a morning train west." "Well, you know my opinion," the Doctor growled. "Sleep on it; think it over again. Good night." After the Doctor had gone Wade sat for a while longer on the porch. He didn't feel the least bit sleepy, and the Doctor had shaken his determination in spite of himself. Supposing, after all--then he shook his head and sighed. There was the note. He fumbled in his pocket and found it and looked at it in the moonlight. There was no use in imagining things when that sheet of paper stared him in the face. He strove to reread the message, but the light was too faint. He folded it again, started to drop it back in his pocket, hesitated, and then tore it savagely into tiny bits and tossed it over the side of the porch. It was as though he had destroyed a malign influence, for, even as the little white fragments went floating down into the shadow, a new hope crept into his heart, and he went upstairs, arguing this way and that in a sudden fever of mental energy. In the bedroom there was no need to light his lamp, and he started to undress in the broad path of moonlight that flooded the little chamber. But after he had thrown his coat aside he forgot to go on with the process, and after many minutes he found himself leaning on the sill of the open window staring at the moon. "Bed?" he muttered, in a strange excitement. "Why should I go to bed? I'm not sleepy. I'm moon-struck, probably. I'm full of crazy thoughts and fancies. I don't want to sleep, I want to walk--and think. I want to be out of doors." He found his way down the stairs, unmindful of the fact that he had left his coat behind, and stepped out into the warm fragrant night. The road was a dark cavern, splotched with silver. He turned away from it, seeking the open spaces of the garden, his shadow stalking beside him, purple-black in the moonlight. The air scarcely moved.