"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?"

"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you."

"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my soul is heavy, and I fain would--would duck." He leaned against the barn door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him.

Across a field, through a wood and along a gra.s.sy slope, they went, toward the Professor's home, pa.s.sing a house which schoolboys said was haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity--heaven. If we die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dreaming it after death--h.e.l.l.

Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams.

Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the slamming of a door.

"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda--cooler than in the house."

The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the cla.s.s who, in the old days, lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted.

"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr.

Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground between here and sunset."

"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and set here and wait and wait."

"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot."

"Let me go," said Milford.

"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch the welcome end of a long sermon."

A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?"

"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool."

"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never thinks of us." An inner door slammed.

Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the s.e.x inspires. But there is a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk.

I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for letters----"

"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at him with contempt, her hands on her hips.

"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been merrier than is my wont; we have shaken warm hands over a stone jug, but n.o.body's character was a.s.sailed. And I had thought, in view of the fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more courtesy."

"You didn't know me."

"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day, but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing, "forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr.

Milford."

Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far down the road, and then he halted to laugh again.

Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began to fall. Milford hastened onward. In the woods, far across a willow flat, the wind blew hard, and the rain lashed the leaves. He turned aside into the haunted house. All the doors were open. He went to the back door and stood looking out at the coming of the rain. A noise quickened his blood, and looking about he saw a vision of white in the front door.

"Who is that?"

A slight cry, a swaying of the vision, a voice replying: "Oh, I did not know there was any one in here. I have stopped in out of the rain."

And now his blood jumped. "Is that you, Miss Strand?"

"Oh, yes, but I do not know you. Oh, is it Mr. Milford? How strange! But you do not live here?"

"No, I've simply dodged in out of the wet. It's pouring down."

"Yes, the clouds were a long time here, but the rain was quick. I went far over after a laundress. Mrs. Stuvic would have sent me in the buggy, but I wanted to walk; and now I shall be made sorry."

"I hope not. Let me see if I can't make it more comfortable for you."

He struck a match, and looked about. The room was bare. In places the floor was broken. She said, with a laugh, that she would not mind it so much but for the dark.

"I hope you have many matches," she said.

"I haven't, but I can remedy it. Here is an old smudge pan. I'll build a fire in it."

He broke up a piece of board, split fine pieces with his knife, tore up a letter, and made a fire in the pan. In a shed-room he found a bench, dusted it, and brought it in for her. She sat down, and he stood looking at the play of the shadows and the light on her hair. The spirit of the cider was gone. He wondered why he had run down the road, laughing. He got down on his knees to feed the fire. It was a trick; it was stealing an att.i.tude to pay a homage.

"Mrs. Goodwin will be very much worried," she said. "I wish that I did not come. It was so much further than they said. I left when the sun was down. Now it is late, and I walked all the time."

"I will run over there and bring the buggy for you."

"Oh, no, no. The rain pours too much. When it is done I will go with you. The road is hard. There will be not much mud. We found many flowers in the woods to-day."

"I saw you with an armful."

"Did you see me wave at you when you stand on the high place in the oats?"

"I did, but I was almost afraid to believe it."

"Almost afraid? Why, what harm? There is no harm to wave a flower. Now it rains easier. It will soon quit."

Never did a promised clearing of the sky so mock a man. He mended the fire, for, in his enraptured gazing, he had neglected it. He got up and looked out, to see a glimmer of the threatening moon and a star peeping from a nest of glinted cloud-wool. He returned and knelt near the fire-pan.

"Is it clearing away?" she asked.

"It's going to pour down."

"But it is getting lighter."

"I know, but another cloud is coming."

"I may get home before the new rain falls."

"No, I hear it in the woods off yonder."

"If I run I may get to a house where some one lives."

"The rain will catch you. A wind is behind it."