Could that be what Desire had meant me to understand? Was there indeed some quality of courage----? That is why my most successful composition from the standpoint of money and popularity went to the publisher under the title, "Shadows of Hills." Of course no one connected the allusion. The general interpretation was best expressed by the cover design of the first printing: a sketch of a mountain-shaded lake on which floated a canoe containing two young persons. I was well pleased to have it so. But--in what land unknown to man towered the vast mountains in whose shadow I panted and strove? Or was my foot indeed upon the mountain itself? I did not know. I do not know, now. CHAPTER XI "If the Dreamer finds himself in an unknown place, ignorant of the country and the people, let him be aware that such place is to be understood of the Other World."--ONEIROCRITICA ACHMETIS. In the morning I drove down to New York. There were affairs demanding attention. Also, I was pressed by an eagerness to get my over-night work into the hands of the publisher. To be exact, I wanted to put the manuscript out of reach of the Thing at the house. Without reason, I had awakened with that instinct strong within me. The atmosphere of the city was tonic. Merely driving through the friendly, crowded streets was an exhilaration. The practical employment of the day broomed away fantastic cobwebs. In the evening I turned toward Connecticut with a feeling of leaving home behind me. But I would not stay away from the house for a night, risking that Desire Michell might come and find me missing. She might believe I had been seized by cowardice and deserted. She might never return. I will not deny that I had lied to her. There was no intention in me of accepting her fleeting visits as the utmost she could give. I meant to snatch her out of darkness and mystery, to set her in the wholesome sunlight where Phillida flitted happily. If I could prevent, those gates of which she vaguely spoke never should close between us. But it was plain that I must tread warily. Once frightened away, how could she be found? Her home, her history, even her face, were unknown to me. Tracing her by a perfume and a tress of hair had been tried, and failed. Of her connection with the Dark Thing I refused to think too deeply. Her connection with me must come first. It was not until I passed the cottage of Mrs. Hill, glimmering whitely in the starlight, where the road made an angle toward the farm, that I recalled our talk in her "best room." "_The Michell family always owned it. The Reverend Cotton Mather Michell went to foreign parts for missionary work twenty years ago and died there----_" My lady of the night was Desire Michell. A clue? "_He never married, so the family's run out._" It was damp here in the hollow where the road dipped down. A chill ran coldly over me.