I

The girl beat with her hands against the door, whimpering softly as the steady concussions shook the white-washed planks. The morning sunlight caught her by the shoulders in warm hands and seemed to shake her. She did not pause to listen for any approaching footsteps, but continued to hammer at the wood as though in a half-trance, and but semi-conscious of what she was doing. White clouds ballooned upward in the bright blue sky and watched her from a distance. They were snowy-plumaged hawks observing the peregrinations of a lice-like humanity upon a rolling ball of earth and sea. The girl was a far-away mote to their far-seeing eyes, a speck of dust without form or meaning. She moaned to herself and shook the door. Dreeme heard her thin voice so broken by suppressed and breathless sobs as he hurried down stairs, turned the key in the rusty grating lock, and flung the door open. She stumbled into the hall, her tear-streaked face lifted like the face of a wounded animal, and lurched against him with a sudden paralysis of knees, clinging tightly to his arm. Dreeme pushed the door shut and half-carried her along the hall to the little study.

“Why Deborah!” he cried. “What is it? Sit down. Shall I get you a glass of water?”

She refused to sit down, but continued to cling to him still whimpering. Her face was streaked with tears and dust, and her mouth shook convulsively. The pupils of her eyes were dilated, and she did not seem to see him.

“What is it?” he repeated. “What is it? You must tell me, you know. What has happened?”

She gazed about the little study in a vague manner, and for a moment appeared to strive for the mastery of her feelings. Her mouth opened and coherent speech seemed about to issue. Then she broke down completely and, relinquishing his arm, dropped to a chair beside the table upon which she buried her face. Dreeme, hearing her unrestrained sobs and noting the convulsive quiver of her pathetically small shoulders, realized that this was better than the stifled whimpering with which she had entered the room. She was giving full vent to her outraged nerves now, letting them run away with her until, tired and exhausted, they would once more be subject to her reason. The young doctor sat down calmly and waited.

Outside the morning moved on leisurely sun-shot feet through the cool lane. Sparkles of light caught at the flawed panes of the windows. In the sky the clouds hovered like white hawks. Birds chirped loudly in the ancient trees, and a creaking wagon drawn by a heavy-hoofed farm-horse protested its way toward the general store. Dreeme listened as the creaking axle-tree and softly-jingling harness grew fainter and finally died out. He heard the far caw of a crow as it sped in feathery darkness toward some field unguarded by an ungainly scare-crow. It was all peaceful and unvexed, a crystal tide of morning, a time for calmness and not tears. He waited patiently. He inspected the atrocious wall-paper that closed him in from the sun, and cleared his throat with dry humor. The wall-paper designer must have been a practical joker. Finding nothing better to do he drew his watch out and looked at it. The heavy, old-fashioned, silver-cased heirloom blandly announced that it was quarter past seven. He forced it back into his vest pocket, and stroked one freshly-shaven cheek meditatively. He had not slept so well. He ... had been troubled by dreams. He thought of ... no, he wouldn’t think of her now. Mrs. Slater would be along with his breakfast soon. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and waited. Fly-specks. Blackened rings of lamp smoke. It was cracked in the corner. That was where the mice nibbled and made little crackling noises during the night. Did they live on wood or plaster?

The girl lifted her head suddenly and pushed back her disheveled hair. Her eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to be astonishing. Dreeme smiled at her gently and said nothing. She looked at him in a surprised manner.

“I feel better,” she announced in a very small voice.

“I’m glad you do,” he replied. “Shall I get you a glass of water now?”

“Please,” she nodded.

When he came back with it she had wiped her tear-stained face with a small handkerchief, smoothed her hair, and brushed part of the dust from her gray dress. She drank the water in slow sips, gazing at him over the top of the tumbler. Dreeme leaned back in his chair and observed her. Curiously enough, although he had seen her but once before she was like an old acquaintance now. It was as though he were sitting in the room with what, in his New England, would be dubbed “family.” A tacit feeling of confidence established itself between them. Her intensely blue eyes, her misty bronze hair, her small mouth and nose, even her thin arms and slender wiry hands, were part and parcel of an old knowledge. It was pleasant to be like this while the mysterious white hawks in the sky hovered so far above them.

“I’m not like this generally,” she informed him as she put the tumbler down. There was a wise and confidential intimation in her voice.

“I know you’re not,” he answered. “You’ve been terribly frightened.”

His statement was almost a question, and the pupils of her eyes dilated again as she nodded assent.

“I’ll tell you all about it directly,” she said.

She was small ... small. That was his main impression. But intelligent. Wise. He waited with a seeming patience praying fervently that Mrs. Slater would not appear until he had found out the source of Deborah’s trouble. He could guess part of it, but he did not want to let his mind stray too far along the vague pathways of unsubstantiated surmise. The girl closed her eyes and obviously strove to adjust herself in a reasonable manner to the subject which was in her mind. It was patent that she did not know how or where to begin, and that she was fearful of not being able to communicate the essence of her story to Dreeme. She wanted to speak reasonably now. To assure herself, perhaps, of her own rationality. He would help. Like a doctor.

“Begin at the beginning,” suggested Dreeme. She opened her eyes. She said:

“I don’t know how to tell you and make it seem like anything. It’s.... It’s more feeling than anything else.”

He nodded sagely, and, after a moment’s hesitation, she began.

“You see I have to do something for my living. Father was killed at the court-house in Leeminster, and he was all that I had. We lived there ... Leeminster, I mean ... and father was a constructor. He built houses. There weren’t many to be built, of course. He was working on the ell of the new court-house and the men mixed cement on the roof of the front porch. One of the bags was pushed off in some way, and it fell on father. He died in half an hour. That was a month ago. Then I had to close up our house ... such a little one, sell things, and help finish up father’s business. I had a very good lawyer, Mr. Stopes. Perhaps you knew him?”

Dreeme shook his head.

“Lawyers,” he said, “are out of my line. They never get sick.”

“He was a very good lawyer,” she insisted. “After the estate was settled there was just enough to pay his fee. Then Aunt Slater sent for me. It was only yesterday that I came over. I walked all the way. I thought I should stay here and help Aunt, but it seemed that Mr. Burroughs had heard about me or seen me in Leeminster ... he preaches there sometimes ... and he told Aunt that Mrs. Westcott needed somebody to help around the house. I didn’t want to help because I am not a servant, and I told Aunt so, but she said that she couldn’t afford to keep me. I thought that was funny, because, after all, she had sent for me. I’m telling you this because I want to show you that I was feeling bad in my mind anyway, and perhaps exaggerated some of the things that happened later.”

Dreeme nodded. Mrs. Slater was like that. She was a New England aunt.

“I didn’t have to come,” proceeded Deborah. “I might have stayed in Leeminster and taught school. Father was very careful about putting me through my studies. Well, I went over late yesterday afternoon to the Westcott farm with Mr. Burroughs. We walked because he said he thought I would like to see the country. I didn’t like the country, and I didn’t like Mr. Burroughs. He is like the country, dull and ghostly and green and sad. I think I first became afraid and nervous on that walk, for Mr. Burroughs, after we started, never said a word to me. We just plodded along, and he would look at me sideways with his funny eyes. I tried to say something once or twice, but he only nodded. I felt as though I was walking into a nightmare. The Westcott farm seemed terribly dreary to me, and I was frightened as soon as that horrible little boy appeared at the fence-gate.”

“Miles,” said Dreeme.

“Is his name Miles?” asked Deborah. “I didn’t know. He had a great growling dog on a rope, and he let it walk after me up the path. It snarled all the way. He started to say something, but Mr. Burroughs just waved his hand and the boy went off through the bushes. We went into the kitchen and Mrs. Westcott was there. Mr. Burroughs introduced me, and I went right to work helping Mrs. Westcott. There were piles of dishes to wash. After that Mrs. Westcott showed me where I was to sleep and where I was to put my things.”

She paused for a moment and shut her eyes, seeming to revisualize inwardly the appearance of Mrs. Westcott.

“She’s quite beautiful, I think,” Deborah proceeded. “But it is what I would call ... something frozen-like, you know.”

Dreeme shifted slightly in his chair.

“If you could imagine cold fire, fire that was just like ice, I think that would be Mrs. Westcott,” went on the girl. “She didn’t have much to say to me. She moved around the kitchen like some ... like some queen, like somebody who didn’t want to be there and didn’t mean to be there very long. Presently she went away with Mr. Burroughs, and I finished up the work in the kitchen and went into the living room. There wasn’t anything to do there, and I kept on into another room that was full of books. It was just like a library, shelves all around, and such tattered books. There wasn’t one that was new. The only thing that I could think of to do was to dust the books. So I found a bit of cloth and started in on them. It would take a lifetime to dust those books. I had removed an armful from one of the shelves and was about to dust the shelf itself when I saw a lot of little dolls in a row against the back of the shelf. They were terribly amusing, and I took two of them out to look at them more closely. One was a tiny man and he had needles stuck in his eyes. The other had a needle thrust into the knee. I pulled it out. It was while I was holding the dolls in my hand that I felt somebody standing in back of me. At first I was afraid to turn around. I was sure that my knees would give way. I put the dolls back, and stood there looking at the shelves. Then something began to turn me, and I faced about, and there stood that awful man in the doorway, with his head thrust forward, and his still eyes watching me with a sort of smile way back in them.”

Deborah paused and thrust a small tongue over her dry underlip.

“I first began to be really frightened then,” she added. “You see, I have nothing to go upon but sensations and intuitions.”

Dreeme sat motionless in his chair, his entire intelligence concentrated upon her story. She said:

“It came over me like waves, and I began to feel like somebody in deep churning waters. There was no reason for it, just something inside of me telling me to be afraid. He stood in the doorway and looked at me, and I stood there unable to move or say a word. I could see the ridges on his head. ‘Who told you to come in here?’ he asked. ‘Go back to the kitchen,’ he added. ‘When I want you to dust the books I’ll tell you so.’ His voice was low and snarling. I don’t know how I got to the door, but I did, and he must have passed me, for just as I was stepping out of the room he shouted, ‘You damned little fool!’ He was standing by the shelves with one of the dolls in his hand.”

Dreeme frowned. Something about wax dolls with pins thrust into them. He had read it somewhere. He could not recall it now. He put the subject away for the time being, and resumed his calm rôle of auditor.

“Nothing more happened till suppertime,” Deborah was saying. “I stayed in the kitchen and helped with the cooking. Then we all sat down at table. There was Mrs. Westcott, and the boy, and Wagner, the hired man, and myself. Mrs. Westcott wanted to say something to Wagner. I could see it on her mouth and in her eyes. And Wagner wanted to hear what she had to say, for he sat like an attentive bull-dog waiting for a caress. But before she could say anything he came out of the library, lurching along in an awkward fashion, for he is lame in one leg, and sat down. None of us spoke then. The dishes were passed in silence. Mrs. Westcott sat with her eyes lowered to her plate, although every now and then she would glance under her long lashes at Wagner, who sat on the edge of his chair with a puzzled expression on his face. He was just like a bull-dog that is trying unsuccessfully to comprehend what its master desires it to do. Mr. Westcott saw them every time, and he would smile in the most malevolent manner. That supper was terrible. I thought that it would never end or that I should suddenly scream and run out of the room. Do you know that taut feeling when your nerves seem strained to the breaking point? I was like that. The boy ... did you say his name was Miles? ... ate like a greedy little animal. Wagner was puzzled and surly. Mrs. Westcott was terribly excited, although on the surface she was as still as snow. I could sense the fever in her. Mr. Westcott was the only calm person, and his calmness was like the breathlessness that is in the air before an electric storm breaks. You know what I mean. When you can hardly breathe. And I was thinking how terrible it was to be there, and how miserable and frightened I was. How could I stand it? How could I stay there? The silence, it ... it seemed to crawl around the room, to move like a great lazy snake, to slide under the table and up the backs of the chairs, and across the face of the clock. The air was heavy. Like before a storm, you know. Like....”

She stopped abruptly, plainly at a loss for words to convey the strange nuances of that meal. Dreeme sat uneasily in his chair, dimly conscious that he was involved in this imbroglio of ominous silences. He began to feel like a man sitting at the edge of the crater of a slumbering volcano. Sooner or later it would erupt, and he would be destroyed by unimaginable fiery lavas. He could picture to himself the silence of that supper without the aid of Deborah. Around a table sat a group of wax figures with living eyes. The eyes spoke, but the mouths were speechless. These eyes whispered, laughed, threatened, fought invisible duels. They were glittering assassins moving stealthily toward their defenseless victims. Deborah was a victim. He was a victim. Anyone who blundered into that death-like circle of wax figures was a victim. Deborah’s voice cut across his brooding. She had given up the attempt to picture the Westcott supper with any degree of vividness. She said:

“After supper, we rose from the table without a word. Wagner hurried away. He went like a ghost. I heard the door close softly behind him. Mr. Westcott heard it, too, for it seemed to be a signal for him to go into his room of books. He said to Mrs. Westcott, ‘Leave me alone now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She said, ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself.’ He smiled at that and said, ‘That’s your prerogative.’ Then he went into the library and closed the door behind him. I helped wash dishes. Pretty soon Mr. Burroughs came. He slid into the house humming to himself. He loitered about the kitchen for a while and talked to Mrs. Westcott about what sort of a year it was, and how he was going to preach Leeminster way on Sunday. Mrs. Westcott just laughed in her husky way. ‘Preach!’ she said. ‘You’re an insane humorist, George.’ He smiled, too, and looked at me in that sly still way. ‘Watch out for my little Paschal Lamb,’ he said, nodding at me. Then he went to the door of the library and knocked, and pretty soon he went in, leaving the door ajar. I could hear him talking with Mr. Westcott. I continued to work about the kitchen, but the door that led into the sitting room was open, and so, too, was the door to the library, ajar, I mean. I could hear men’s voices, but it was hard to distinguish the words. I didn’t notice when Mrs. Westcott went away, but when I looked for her to ask her about something, she was gone. Once I heard Mr. Westcott’s voice raised. He cried out, ‘I tell you she’ll do, George. At the place called Dagon....’ Then I heard footsteps coming toward the door. ‘The master ...’ began Mr. Burroughs, and the door was closed with a slam. I couldn’t distinguish any more words. When I went into the sitting room I could just hear Mr. Burroughs’ voice. It was monotonous, as though he was preaching, and it sounded like some foreign language. Maybe Latin.”

She stopped and looked at the silent attentive figure of Dreeme.

“It doesn’t sound like anything does it?” she asked.

“Go on,” said Dreeme briefly. Queer word, Dagon.

“I’m getting to what really frightened me now,” she said, “All that went before was a mere leading up, a series of nothings that put me in a nervous state of mind. I wanted you to know, though. I went to bed rather early because I was tired. It was a long time before I got to sleep. You know how a strange bed feels, and when one is nervous. But I did get to sleep finally, and I guess I slept pretty heavily. I don’t know how long I slept, but I am sure that I was awakened by three horrible screams. I started up....”

“You heard somebody screaming?” asked Dreeme. She shook her head. She said:

“No, I didn’t hear anything. But I am sure that I was wakened by three screams. I don’t know.... I.... I sensed the echo of them, I guess. I started up wide awake and half-mad with fright. I knew instantly without looking that the door to my room was open. There was a little moonlight straggling in at the window and when I looked toward the door I could see him standing there. I could see his face very plainly, and the ridges on his skull. He....”

Dreeme uttered a stifled exclamation.

“You mean ...” he began.

“Yes, yes,” she said, the shadow of fear starting up in her eyes again. “Mr. Westcott was standing in my doorway and looking at me. He was leaning forward a little, his head lowered on his breast, and staring at me from under his eyebrows. The moonlight rippled across his uneven head and his flat nose. His eyes were large and dark and still, with that awful stillness that seems to say so many things. He stood there and stared, and everything seemed to die inside me. The blood paused in my veins, and a queer sort of dizziness came over me. I was conscious of nothing but his eyes, and of an enormous will in his eyes that seemed to but half-reveal itself. I seemed to swoon, to float upward, while his eyes grew into huge circles that swallowed me and the room. Far off, as though from another world, I heard a low voice saying, ‘At Dagon. At Dagon. For the master.’ He did not say that, for his lips never moved, and even if he had spoken I could not have heard him, for my ears were like dead things. It was through his eyes that everything came to me. And it was looking into his eyes, being drowned in his eyes, that I saw....”

For a moment she lost the faculty of speech and lifted a small white frightened face to Dreeme. Her lips fumbled for words, and the young doctor could see them moving dumbly.

“Wait,” he said, “Don’t tell me any more.”

In the back of his mind a faint light was beginning to dawn. It was far away as yet, as far away as those snowy hawks that hovered over the valley. He would have to mount as high as those clouds if he was to see everything spread out like a simple map before him.

“I must,” she said with an effort. “I must try to let you know. It was all in his eyes. An unutterable evil. A concentration of everything that is horrible and bestial in this world, or, for all I know, out of it. His eyes were telling me of all the sins and perversions and horrors that have existed since before the beginning of time, of reptile urges and.... I can’t explain it, you see. I do not know how to handle the words. But I saw ... the horror of time ... and....”

She could not go on. But she did not sob again. She sat with trance-like eyes and said nothing.

Dreeme was staring at her intently, and, from a half-shocked mind, striving to piece together her stumbling narrative of mingled fears and menaces. Curiously enough he did not doubt the authenticity of her mental fever. This was no mere hysteria, no nightmare. It was as though the hidden facet of an admitted evil had been slowly turned toward him. The far-away light continued to shine in the deepest recesses of his mind. He felt all that she felt as he heard her story, and understood vividly enough the aspect and profoundity of that terror which moved her, and which she conveyed so haltingly. She had sensed something that could not be adequately expressed in words, just as he had sensed something in the community that was beyond the power of speech.

Deborah began to speak again. She said:

“He turned and went out noiselessly, and the door made no sound as it closed behind him. I could hear the clock ticking somewhere. It was the first time I had heard one in that house, and somehow it made the night and the world real again. I could not sleep again. It was too much to expect. I lay there staring at the door for hours, and sure that there was somebody on the other side of it, somebody standing there with his head thrust forward and still eyes that grew as large as moons. It began to grow light, that skimmed-milk-like color that the early cloudy morning has, and I kept saying to myself, ‘I must go away from here. I mustn’t be found here in the morning.’ It was only by a terrific effort of will that I forced myself to get up and dress. I can’t tell you how blinded with panic I was when I pushed the door open. There was no one there. There wasn’t a sound in the house as I crept down stairs and out of the kitchen door. I reached the road and looked back at the house. It squatted there like a dead thing with blind eyes. It couldn’t see me. I began to run then. I ran all the way here. I thought I could hear things running after me, but when I looked back the road was empty. I even thought I heard someone laughing in the air. I came to you first because....”

The door swung open and the small plump figure of Mrs. Slater appeared behind a breakfast tray. Her eyes opened with amazement when she saw the drooping figure of Deborah, but she said nothing until she methodically placed the tray on the table and removed the napkin from the food. Then she turned to the girl, a thin disapproval curling down her mouth.

“Land’s sakes,” she said in a querulous tone. “You’re in town early.”

Deborah gazed from her aunt to Dreeme, a mingled defiance and supplication in her blue eyes.

“I’ve run away,” she said. “I’m not going back. I won’t stay there.”

Mrs. Slater arranged the breakfast plates in a deliberate fashion. Her eyes fluttered as she moved about the table. She said:

“You can’t run away. Girls don’t run away in Marlborough.”

There was no interest in her voice, nothing but a faintly-aggrieved protest.

“She has run away,” remarked Dreeme shortly. “Can’t you see her in front of you?”

Mrs. Slater ignored him. In a voice entirely lacking in curiosity she inquired:

“What was the matter, Deborah?”

“I ... I was frightened,” replied the girl. “I don’t like that awful place and those awful people.”

She stopped abruptly at that. Dreeme understood that she realized the impossibility of explaining anything to Mrs. Slater. He undertook to fill the gap.

“Deborah is a highly nervous girl,” he said. “It is necessary that she have surroundings that are favorable. A lonely farm and a brutal farmer who peers into one’s bedroom at night, and who is up to the devil knows what, are not the surroundings for her. Speaking as a doctor....”

“Your coffee’s cooling,” said Mrs. Slater. She shifted the sugar-bowl uneasily. Dreeme poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Deborah.

“There’s plenty of breakfast in the house of your relations,” announced Mrs. Slater, the wan ghost of indignation in her voice.

“But not plenty of room,” added Dreeme. He sat down angrily to his breakfast, and proceeded to eat. Mrs. Slater stood looking at her niece.

“You know I would do for you,” she said, “but Walden has about all he can handle with the children. The land’s mighty poor.”

She ignored Dreeme completely. The young doctor visualized a picture of a stoop-shouldered man struggling all day with thin soil that noisy little mouths might be fed. He cultivated a stone and strove to make bread of it. Well, it was no circus. Still....

“You can’t place Deborah where she is frightened and unhappy,” he said.

“Mrs. Westcott is the only neighbor around here who wants somebody,” remarked Mrs. Slater. There was a hopeless and dispirited note in her voice.

Neither Dreeme nor Deborah replied. Mrs. Slater stood by the table stolidly, her eyes fluttering.

“There’s nothing to be frightened of at the Westcott farm,” she added. “Nothing at all.”

Dreeme passed a slice of toast to Deborah. Curious. All his life. He knew she sat that way. Mrs. Slater moved closer to the table.

“I don’t see why you should be unhappy there,” she said. “I don’t see, at all.”

“Well, we’ll talk it over later,” interposed Dreeme. “Let Deborah recover her equanimity.”

“It’s hard on me,” said Mrs. Slater. She stooped to lift an empty plate, and tiny lines rippled across her plump face. It was sagging a bit now. The earth seemed pulling it downward. She was aggrieved at life in general and Deborah in particular. Dreeme she plainly regarded as an interloper, an officious stranger, who thrust himself into affairs that did not concern him. For an instant he was angry. It was hard on her! He opened his mouth to expostulate, even to deliver a long speech on her unkindly attitude, when a measured thumping sounded in the hall leading to the study. It was a rhythmical alternating sound, now loud and then soft, the sound of a man, perhaps, with a wooden leg. A man with a wooden leg or.... Before the door swung open Dreeme knew who it was. With calm eyes, therefore, he raised his face to Jeffrey Westcott who stood in the doorway. He said:

“Good morning. You are into town early.”

Westcott nodded slightly. His eyes were fastened on Deborah.

“You’re abroad early also,” he remarked to her. His voice was low and casual. The girl did not answer him but turned appealingly to Dreeme. Westcott smiled vaguely, the mere flash of an ironic humor that was undisturbed and sure of itself.

“How are you, Mrs. Slater?” he asked.

Mrs. Slater fluttered her eyes and coughed an intimation that she was not so well. Dreeme perceived that she did not like Westcott, but was making an effort to conceal her instinctive antagonism. There was fear in this effort. The farmer’s eyes roved about the room, casually inspected the books in the little case, and then reverted to Deborah.

“I’ve the horse here,” he said to her. “I’ll take you back now.”

“She’s not going back with you, Mr. Westcott,” interposed Dreeme dryly. “She’s not going back at all.”

Mrs. Slater opened her mouth with a cluck.

“Not at all,” repeated Dreeme, giving him a defiant look.

Westcott continued to regard the girl.

“Weren’t you coming back with me, Deborah?” he asked in a low silky voice.

A strange thing happened. Deborah rose to her feet slowly and took a single step toward the farmer. His dark eyes were fastened piercingly upon her now. Dreeme jumped from his chair and turned the girl around. Instantly she burst into tears.

“Don’t let me go,” she pleaded.

“I know now,” said Dreeme. He faced Westcott with a smile. He added:

“Try that on me. See if it will work on a man.”

Westcott lowered his cloven head.

“Really, doctor,” he said in a mild voice, “I don’t understand you.”

He, too, was smiling slightly.

“You neglected to send your bill,” he went on.

Fumbling in his pocket he drew forth a brand-new five dollar bill, and, limping forward, laid it on the table.

“There,” he said. “We are quits. Let us hope that we may remain quits.”

He opened his eyes and gazed full into Dreeme’s face. There was absolutely no expression in his look. It was like the meaningless stare of a blind man. Paying no more attention to Deborah he turned to Mrs. Slater.

“Is Walden in the fields?” he asked.

She nodded, and he swung on his heel.

“Good morning, doctor. Good morning, Mrs. Slater,” he said. He ignored Deborah. An instant later they heard his lame thumping through the hall, and then the closing of the front door. Dreeme absently picked up the bill. On it was scrawled:

“Even a fool may learn wisdom.”

II

The Reverend George Burroughs stretched his long yellow hand out and grasped a slice of bread. He made it a point to take the fattest cut. Dreeme, watching from beneath lowered lids, noted that the preacher’s hand was shaped like a claw. The fingers curled back like the crazy-shaped bits of driftwood he had seen washed up on the tip of Cape Cod years ago, when, as a boy, he had made a vacation trip to those rolling dunes of white sand. Indeed, the Reverend George Burroughs himself was very like something that had been washed up on the beach. Some sort of skinny sea-monster, an old merman who was half sea-horse. It was time to keep an eye on the preacher. Dreeme looked up at Burroughs and discovered that the man of God apparently was thinking the same thought, for his expressionless eyes were fastened upon the young doctor over the bread that he was cramming into his capacious mouth. Burroughs masticated loudly and continued to stare at Dreeme. The pupils of his eyes were like two black shoe buttons. He had never done that before. He had always averted his eyes or dropped them to the heaped plate above which he constantly hovered so eagerly. Dreeme was less startled than amused. If he had entered into the old hypocrite’s line of vision at last so much the worse for the old hypocrite. He would give him something to look at. Something to think about. The old night-wanderer! The old fool who poked his horse-like face into burned mills to see what he might see! The withered employment agency for the Westcott farm! Dreeme remarked calmly:

“You enjoy evening strolls, preacher.”

Burroughs, his mouth clogged with bread, nodded slowly.

Dreeme awaited an answer, and as none was forthcoming apparently, he transferred his attention to the rest of the table. He had sat so many times at this board and had seen nothing and understood everything. Now he saw everything and understood nothing. This noon, for instance, it was simple enough to perceive that a general unrest pervaded the secretive diners. It was even communicated to the children, who gazed frightenedly from face to face, seeking for the reassurance of an unslipped mask, for a visage that did not suggest the complexities of perturbation. Mrs. Slater, her cheeks heightened in color—tiny scarlet flags mutely calling for aid—and her eyes fluttering, was plainly disaffected and at odds with circumstances. Walden Slater was so upset that he ate meagerly. His long camel-like upper lip closed half-heartedly over the mouthfuls that he balanced precariously on the flat blade of his knife. The preacher was puzzled, a bit startled, perhaps, to find Dreeme thrust into his scheme of things for he must have heard all about the young doctor’s championship of Deborah. Deborah! She, at least, was real. Though Dreeme did not know these other people he knew her. She smiled briefly across the table at him, and it was as though she had flung him a flower. A small blue flower with a starry heart tossed across a table of strangers. A flower as blue as her eyes were blue, as starry as the pupils of her eyes. He smiled back at her broadly. The smile was intercepted by everybody at the table. He enjoyed their reactions to it. Mrs. Slater nipped at it as a parrot nips at a cracker. The children thrust little faces of ice between it and Deborah. Walden Slater retreated from it in a bewildered manner, and then, to Dreeme’s pleasant surprise, wrung the doleful ghost of an accompanying smile from his long lip and tossed it gingerly to Deborah. The Reverend George Burroughs observed it impassively and blew a little cloud of darkness over it. The busy knives and forks played a greedy melody.

“In the cool of the evening it is good to walk,” announced the preacher. He spoke as though he were delivering the text for a sermon.

“And much may be seen by night that is invisible by day,” returned Dreeme facetiously. He felt in a high good humor, light-minded, puffed up with a malicious playfulness. He was quite fearless of the community and its inhabitants, “I will not be here long,” he thought to himself. He, after all, was but a sojourner. He did not belong in Marlborough and he was glad of it.

“The true heart of man is often bared to the darkness,” agreed Burroughs in a sententious voice. For an instant Dreeme thought the preacher was laughing at him, and he gazed at the yellow face before him suspiciously. There was no hint of a smile upon that long countenance. It was a sober blank, quite clear of any subtle writing. Indeed, it was a little too guileless. “Perhaps,” Dreeme thought, “I am not as self-sufficient as I think I am.” His eyes returned to Deborah. She was looking at him brightly. Well, he would have to be self-sufficient for her sake. Still, these people were accepting his interpositions too quiescently. He knew that they could not be as weak-willed as that. Humphrey Lathrop had intimated too much. He, himself, had observed too much. Did not Burroughs know that he had met Martha Westcott in the burned mill? Had not Burroughs told all this to Westcott himself? Or had the darkness concealed them from the inquisitive eyes of the preacher? Martha Westcott had said “no” to that and he had believed her. And why had Westcott received his interference in the matter of Deborah’s return to the farm so blandly? What was he planning behind his smiling face and hypnotic eyes? That was it, of course. Westcott was fooling with hypnotism. He had hypnotized Deborah that night and even when he had come for her this very morning he had, for an instant, subjected her will to his. Dreeme scraped his plate clean with outward unconcern but inwardly he was perplexed. “As a matter of fact,” he thought to himself, “I am all at sea.” He was not self-sufficient at all. He was aware of a great many questions, but he could offer but a meager handful of answers. These people were leagued against him, and they intended to do what they pleased with him when the psychological moment came. And that would be when he interfered too strenuously in their designs, when through fool-luck he clogged their purposes. That would be when? The scraping of knives and creaking of chairs aided and abetted his inquiring mind. He pushed his plate back and scowled. Then his features lightened. Of course! A thrill of triumph ran up his spine, and the far-away light in the depths of his mind glowed brighter. It would be when he found the place called Dagon. It would be when he stood on that spot and faced these farmers in the very heart of their mystery. Even as the unfamiliar name flashed across his consciousness the preacher’s yellow hand closed upon his wrist. He lifted startled eyes to the calm equine face.

“I asked,” said the Reverend George Burroughs in his solemn voice, “if you enjoyed strolling in the evening.”

Still at it, eh?

“By myself, yes,” replied Dreeme. The yellow hand disappeared beneath the table.

“It is good to be by one’s self,” remarked the preacher. “He who goes by himself need fear no man.”

The stilted voice of Burroughs rose like the neigh of a horse.

“That is not exactly the saying, is it?” inquired Dreeme politely.

The preacher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said nothing.

They had finished eating now. The defeated platter lay in greasy subjection. The knives and forks reposed upon the stained field of battle like discarded weapons. The buzzing flies hummed above the debris monotonously. With a clattering of steel-tipped shoes the children squirmed from their chairs and fled through the door. Mrs. Slater and Deborah rose and staggered toward the kitchen under loads of plates and cups and gravy-boats. They were Trojan women carrying the shields of their warriors. The three men still sat in their places as though there was something to be said between them. Walden Slater opened and shut his mouth. He looked helplessly from Burroughs to Dreeme. His sweaty shoulders seemed to climb up about his tanned leathery face. A remnant of bread swung like a miniature acrobat from his chin.

“It’ll be a poor crop,” he mumbled.

“Poor crop,” echoed Burroughs.

“Why will it be a poor crop?” asked Dreeme.

Walden Slater opened his mouth and eyes very wide at that. After a moment he answered weakly:

“Because it will be a poor crop.”

Several minutes of silence ensued.

“The Lord will provide,” remarked Burroughs finally.

Walden Slater did not brighten perceptibly at these glad tidings. He had put his trust in the Lord before, and he knew exactly how much it was rewarded when there was too much sun and not enough rain. He corrugated his brow in the unusual travail of thought.

“I guess ...” he commenced.

“If rain ...” started Burroughs.

“How much ...” questioned Dreeme.

All three men had started at once, and at the surprising medley of voices they ceased abruptly. Each one waited for the other to speak. No one dared to begin. Mrs. Slater and Deborah had removed all the dishes. The red and white table-cloth was folded up and put away. The hot afternoon sun splashed through the windows and flooded the dining room floor. Burroughs cautiously withdrew his chair from the golden pool. Walden Slater spoke with unusual rapidity for him.

“About Deb,” he said, “I guess if she wants to stay, she can. I told Jeff Westcott that. I said....”

He stopped as abruptly as he commenced.

Dreeme wanted to jump up and fling his arms about the weary farmer. This was what had been on Walden Slater’s mind. This was what he had desired to communicate to Dreeme. Having delivered himself of his pronunciamento he rose painfully to his feet and turned toward the door. The Reverend George Burroughs picked his teeth meditatively with a wooden toothpick he had drawn from his black vest pocket. Then he blew his nose with a rare fish-horn effect.

Dreeme fumbled for his pipe contentedly. Well, Walden Slater was a friend. He was an ally. He was stretching a grotesque gnarled hand across the imbroglio of nights and days to Dreeme. The young doctor watched the farmer’s bowed shoulders disappear through the door. He was going back to his meager sun-parched acres where he would labor all the harder that he might feed one more mouth. Dreeme lighted his pipe, pushed his chair back, and walked slowly across the room. Before he reached the warm flood of sunlight he was halted.

“Doctor Dreeme.”

The Reverend George Burroughs stood beside the table with a half-raised yellow claw. His stringy black hair stood out above his frayed coat collar.

“If you enjoy the pleasing scent of the evening air,” he declared in his neighing voice, “perhaps we may stroll together some time. I am a silent companion, I fear, but equally a lover of nature. If you desire I shall be pleased to give you some information about the flora and fauna of this neighborhood.”

“Thank you,” responded Dreeme. “I generally stroll alone when I do stroll, which is not often. Sometime, however....” He waved an inconclusive hand.

Outside he wondered. “Now, what the devil does he mean?” He turned at the gateway to meet a corpulent red-faced man who came running heavily down the road. The fellow was waving his arms in excitement. “Doctor,” he called as he came nearer, “Doctor.” Dreeme waited for the excited individual. When he came abreast of the doctor he stopped and puffed furiously while he mopped his ruddy face with a ruddier handkerchief. “Cardiac trouble,” thought Dreeme. Aloud he said:

“You shouldn’t run in the sun.”

The individual flourished his active hand.

“They’ve found a body by the Saccarac River, almost under the bridge,” he bellowed. “I’m Barnson. I don’t know nothing about it. My farm’s just above the bridge. My son, Simon, found the body. You remember, you treated him for blood-poisoning in the foot last Fall.”

Dreeme was uncertain as to whether he had treated the body or Simon for blood-poisoning in the foot, but he turned with Barnson and started to walk hurriedly with him up the Leeminster Road.

“Whose body?” he asked.

“Didn’t wait ... to find out,” puffed Barnson. “My boy, Simon, found it. You remember ... the boy you treated.”

He sat down heavily by the roadside.

“Dang it, I’m winded,” he declared. “You run ahead.”

“The body won’t run away,” said Dreeme.

Nevertheless he mounted the incline at a trot, his exertions and the sun covering his face with a freely running river of perspiration. The dry red sand puffed about his feet and sifted into his shoes. As he turned the arc of the road by the burned mill he saw a knot of men standing by the river below the bridge. They were leaning forward, their shoulders almost touching. He scrambled down the bank, the wiry weeds catching at his clothes and thrusting up his coat-sleeves as he half-slid and half-stumbled toward the low baked bank of the river. The men drew apart at the sound of his scrambling feet, and a freckled-faced youth with a bobbing Adam’s apple, whom he recognized as Simon Barnson, turned to him as he approached the group.

“It’s Wagner, Westcott’s man,” he called in a shrill voice.

Dreeme waved the men aside and approached the limp bundle of clothes that huddled before him. Wagner lay on his side, his heavy-booted feet sunk in the muddy ooze of the Saccarac River. One arm was twisted across his face. The two or three farmers who stood in a knot conversing in low tones, observed Dreeme curiously as he went methodically about his task of investigating the condition of the corpse. It was only by a violent effort that the young doctor moved Wagner’s bulky upflung arm sufficiently to study the dead man’s face. He started back with an exclamation of horror at the sight. Wagner’s eyes had been torn out and a wooden peg had been driven into each socket. Streamers of blood had flowed from these wounds and coagulated along the tanned cheeks and in the red and bushy beard. The purple lips were drawn back over the yellow teeth in a last ghastly smile of anguish. In the back of the hired man’s head, a trifle above the lined red neck, was an open wound, a gaping orifice of blood and splintered bone, that might have been made with some fairly sharp instrument, an axe or a heavy chisel.

“He’s dead all right,” said Dreeme, rising to his feet. “How long since he was found?”

The farmers stood in stolid silence until Simon Barnson constituted himself spokesman.

“I found him ’bout half an hour ago,” he said. “Then I run home and told Pa. Then I run to Bidwell’s.” He indicated a tall farmer standing near. Bidwell backed hastily away.

“Don’t you be talking too much, Simon,” called a voice from the top of the bank. “You’ll be talking yourself into jail first thing you know.”

Dreeme glanced up and saw the elder Barnson sitting on the ground and mopping his fiery face. His lips curled, and he turned back to the silent farmers. He said:

“It’s murder, you know. I should say the man’s been dead about three hours. We’ll have to find out who’s been across this bridge during the last three hours.”

The farmers shuffled together.

“I reckon there’s authorities’ll find that out,” said one of them coldly. The others nodded in agreement.

Dreeme felt helpless and out of place. He addressed himself to Simon Barnson.

“Has the coroner been sent for?”

Bidwell, the tall farmer, spoke up at that. He said:

“Yessir. I sent my man with the mare out to Leeminster right away as soon’s Simon told me. He’ll pick up Westcott on the way back.”

“Oh, will he?” said Dreeme. He stood beside the body gazing down at it. Wagner stared up at him with a fixed grin upon his ensanguined face. He lay like an old sack half-filled with boneless flesh. He was worm’s meat now. All his toiling in the hot sun and the fierce rains had come to this. His heavy feet had crunched through the last field. His hands, so calloused and split with labor, would guide farm implements no more. Dreeme looked down at the clenched hand that he had forced from the disfigured face and he saw clutched in the black, broken-nailed, stumpy fingers a bit of paper. It was curious that he had missed it before. He knelt down and tried to force the stiff fingers open. The farmers watched him from a little distance curiously, their necks craned, their eyes narrowed to slits in the sunlight. It took all his strength to open these dead fingers but with one last desperate effort he heard them break with a crackling sound and the slip of paper fluttered to the oozy bank. He snatched it up before it drifted into the river. Standing up he held the paper before him and looked at it. There was nothing upon it except the tiny drawing of a goat’s head. Dreeme stared at it in perplexity.

“I reckon you’d better save that for the coroner, Mister Doctor,” remarked Bidwell.

“I intend to,” replied Dreeme shortly.

None of them trusted him. He was a stranger and they wanted their own kind around, men who talked and thought as they did, who understood without words the springs of hidden actions. Well, to hell with them! Let them all go to hell! He heard the creak of the coroner’s buggy and the clop-clop of the horse on the bridge-boards above him and lifting his eyes he saw the thin-mouthed Leeminster official. One of their own kind at last! Beside him was Jeffrey Westcott, hatless, his cloven skull gleaming blue in the sunlight. The farmer turned his head downward and stared coolly at the body of his hired man. Then he transferred his attention to Dreeme. There was no expression in his face.

“Down here, coroner, down here,” called Simon Barnson.

“Hold your horses, son!” replied that official. “I’ll be right there.”

He lumbered heavily from his buggy and slid down the bank in a sitting posture, adjusting his steel-rimmed spectacles as he came.