so still. After a while he did hear footsteps, crunching the snow
heavily; the gate clicked as they came out: it was Knowles, and the
clergyman whom Dr. Cox did not like; Vandyke was his name.

"Don't bolt the gate," said Knowles; "Miss Howth will be out presently."

They sat down on a pile of lumber near by, waiting, apparently. Holmes
went up and joined them, standing in the shadow of the lumber, talking
to Vandyke. He did not meet him, perhaps, once in six months; but he
believed in the man, thoroughly.

"I've just helped Knowles build a Christmas-tree in yonder,--the House
of Refuge, you know. He could not tell an oak from an arbor-vitæ, I
believe."

Knowles was in no mood for quizzing.

"There are other things I don't know," he said, gloomily, recurring to
some subject Holmes had interrupted. "The House is going to the Devil,
Charley, headlong."

"There's no use in saying no," said the other; "you'll call me a lying
diviner."

Knowles did not listen.

"Seems as if I was to go groping and stumbling through the world like
some forsaken Cyclops with his eye out, dragging down whatever I
touched. If there was anything to hold by, anything certain!"