"Yes."
"Are you armed?"
"I have a shot-gun inside."
"That's all right. Don't open your door to any stranger.... You know I simply hate to leave you alone this way——"
"But I have the dog," she reminded him, with a pretty flush of gratitude.
He had retained her hand longer than the easiest convention required or permitted. So he released it, hesitated, then with a visible effort[186] he turned on his heel and strode away westward across the scrub.
The sun hung low behind the tall, parti-coloured shaft of the Light House, towering smooth and round high above the forest.
He looked up at Ibis Light, at the circling buzzards above it, then walked on, scarcely knowing where he was going, until he walked into the door of his own bungalow, and several large spiders scattered into flight across the floor.
"There's no use," he said aloud to an audience of lizards clinging to the silvery bark of the log-room. "I can't take that quarry. I can't do it—whether it belongs to me or not. How can a big, strong, lumbering young man do a thing like that? No. No. No!"
He picked up a pencil and a sheet of paper: