PART TWO
CHAPTER I
I
It was a hot October day.
A torrid wave generated somewhere in the far west, and aided by the prevailing trade winds had swept relentlessly across the country, reaching the city at a most unusual time. It had not come unheralded, however, for the sun of yesterday had gone down a blazing red, illuminating the sky like rays from a mighty furnace, and tinging the evening landscape with the reddish and purplish hues of an Indian summer. And what a blanket of humidity accompanied it! Like a cloak it settled down upon the land, making breathing laborious and driving every living creature out of doors.
Jim Cadwalader and his wife sat on the lawn, if the patch of brown grass to the side of their little house could be termed a lawn, and awaited the close of the day. Three huge elms, motionless in the still sunshine and, like all motionless things, adding to the stillness, afforded a canopy against the burning rays of the sun. What mattered it that the cool shaded air was infested with mosquitoes and house-flies or that the coarse grass was uneven and unkempt, from the low mounds which ran all over it or, from the profusion of leaves which had here and there fluttered down from the great trees. For it must be confessed that neither Jim nor his wife had found the time for the proper care of the premises, or if perchance, they had found the time the inclination itself had been wanting.