* * * * *
Filled with inward resentment Hugh at last did go to the farmhouse. Wet
and with dragging, heavy feet he turned out of the Medina Road to find the
house dark and apparently deserted.
Then a new and puzzling situation arose. When he stepped over the threshold
and into the house he knew Clara was there.
On that day she had not driven him to work in the morning or gone for him
at noon hour because she did not want to look at him in the light of day,
did not want again to see the puzzled, frightened look in his eyes. She had
wanted him in the darkness alone, had waited for darkness. Now it was dark
in the house and she waited for him.
How simple it was! Hugh came into the living-room, stumbled forward into
the darkness, and found the hat-rack against the wall near the stairway
leading to the bedrooms above. Again he had surrendered what he would no
doubt have called the manhood in himself, and hoped only to be able to
escape the presence he felt in the room, to creep off upstairs to his bed,
to lie awake listening to noises, waiting miserably for another day to
come. But when he had put his dripping hat on one of the pegs of the rack
and had found the lower step with his foot thrust into darkness, a voice
called to him.
"Come here, Hugh," Clara said softly and firmly, and like a boy caught
doing a forbidden act he went toward her.
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