"Seen Mr. Claude to-day, 'm."
"Oh no, you didn't, Sweetapple," Lois contradicted. "Mr. Claude is in the West."
"He may be in the West now, 'm, but he wasn't at twenty-five minutes past two this afternoon."
Sudden fear brought Lois down a step or two of the portico, over the Corinthian pillars of which roses clambered in early July profusion. In white, with a broad-brimmed Winterhalter hat from which a floating green veil hung over her shoulders and down her back, her strong, slim figure seemed to have gained in fulfilment of herself even in the weeks that Thor had been away.
"Where did you see him, Sweetapple?—or think you saw him?"
Sweetapple turned the nozzle of the hose so as to develop a crown of spray with which he bedewed the roses of all colors grouped in a great central bed. "I didn't think, 'm. It was him."
"Well, where?"
"See him first going into the woods leading up to Duck Rock. That was when I was on my way to Lawyer Petley's."
"Did you see him twice?"
"See him again as I come back. He was down in the road by that time—looking up toward old man Fay's—Hadley B. Hobson's place that is to be. Old man Fay's got to quit. Family moved already. You knew that, didn't you, 'm?"