The next morning I walked into the village, mailed
my letter, visited the railway station with true rustic
instinct and watched the cutting out of a freight car for
Annandale with a pleasure I had not before taken in
that proceeding. The villagers stared at me blankly as
on my first visit. A group of idle laborers stopped talking
to watch me; and when I was a few yards past them
they laughed at a remark by one of the number which
I could not overhear. But I am not a particularly sensitive
person; I did not care what my Hoosier neighbors
said of me; all I asked was that they should refrain
from shooting at the back of my head through the windows
of my own house.
On this day I really began to work. I mapped out
a course of reading, set up a draftsman's table I found
put away in a closet, and convinced myself that I was
beginning a year of devotion to architecture. Such was,
I felt, the only honest course. I should work every day
from eight until one, and my leisure I should give to
recreation and a search for the motives that lay behind
the crafts and assaults of my enemies.
When I plunged into the wood in the middle of the
afternoon it was with the definite purpose of returning
to the upper end of the lake for an interview with Morgan,
who had, so Bates informed me, a small house back
of the cottages.
I took the canoe I had chosen for my own use from
the boat-house and paddled up the lake. The air was
still warm, but the wind that blew out of the south
tasted of rain. I scanned the water and the borders of
the lake for signs of life,-more particularly, I may as
well admit, for a certain maroon-colored canoe and a
girl in a red tam-o'-shanter, but lake and summer cottages
were mine alone. I landed and began at once my
search for Morgan. There were many paths through
the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several
futilely before I at last found a small house snugly
bid away in a thicket of young maples.
The man I was looking for came to the door quickly
in response to my knock.
"Good afternoon, Morgan."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Glenarm," he said, taking the
pipe from his mouth the better to grin at me. He
showed no sign of surprise, and I was nettled by his cool
reception. There was, perhaps, a certain element of
recklessness in my visit to the house of a man who had
shown so singular an interest in my affairs, and his cool
greeting vexed me.
"Morgan-" I began.
"Won't you come in and rest yourself, Mr. Glenarm?"
he interrupted. "I reckon you're tired from your trip
over-"