He paused then at the gate.
A lighted lamp was in one of the windows on the ground floor. The soft glow of it streamed in a long ladder of light out to him in the darkness.
He opened the gate and went haltingly across the yard, and after a moment's hesitation he knocked at the door.
At the far end of the street the sea thudded over the yellow sanded beach; the pale stretch of it coming out of the grayness in a long white line.
She answered his knock.
The light from the lamp swept through the open doorway.
Something in his face terrified her; something that she had never before seen in those blue green eyes, the color of the sea.
"What is it? What's happened?"
He stood there just looking down at her.
"Oh, Mister, tell me; please—what is it?"