Burned Bridges

It was so utterly and dishearteningly foreign to the orderly

arrangement, the meticulous neatness of the home wherein Thompson had

grown to young manhood under the tutelage of the prim spinsters that he

could scarcely accept as a reality that this, henceforth, was to be his

abode.

He could only stand, with a feeling in his throat that was new in his

experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation

abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats and the birds.