"Want any help?" asked the boat-man curiously as his passenger sprang from the moving launch.
Spence did not hear him. He was already across the sodden planks. Only the up-trail now lay between him and the end—or the beginning. The shadows of the trees stretched waving arms. He felt strong as steel, light as air as he sprang up the wooded path....
It was just as he had pictured it—the cottage in its square of silver ... the sailing moon!
But the cottage was empty.
He knew at once that it was empty. He dared not let himself know it. With a doggedness which defied conviction, he dragged his feet, suddenly heavy, across the rough grass. The door on the veranda was open. Why not?—the door of an empty house.... He went in.
The moonlight showed the old familiar things, the chinks in the wall, the rickety table, the couch, the stairway! ... He stumbled to the stairway. He forced his leaden feet to mount it.... It was pitch dark there. The upper doors were shut.... "Her door—on the right." He said this to himself as if prompting a stupid little boy with a lesson ... In the darkness his hand felt for the door-knob ... but why open the door? ... There was no life behind it. He knew that.... There was no life anywhere in this horrible emptiness.... "Death, then." He muttered, as he flung back the door.
There was nothing there ... only moonlight ... nothing ... yes, something on the floor ... some-thing light and lacy, crushed into shapelessness ... Desire's hat.
He picked it up. The wires of its chiffon frame, broken and twisted, fell limp in his hand.
There was no other sign in the room. The bed was untouched. The Thing which had wrecked its insatiate rage upon the hat had not lingered. Spence went out slowly. There would be time for everything now—since time had ceased to matter. He laid the hat aside gently. There might be work for his hands to do.
With mechanical care he searched the cottage. No trace of disturbance met him anywhere until he reached the kitchen. Something had happened there Over-turned chairs and broken table—a door half off its hinge. Someone had fled from the house this way ... fled where?