messenger had been sent to fetch Halsey. He reported that Newell Knight
was in "an awful way." Susannah alighted at once and walked to the
tavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to the
afflicted man.

The lights as they shone from John Biery's windows reminded her vividly
of the first time, a month since, when she had driven to that house at
night. She had grown much older since then, stronger in many ways,
weaker in some, but she was not conscious of this; it was not her way to
give even so much as a passing glance at herself as one of the actors in
life's drama. The road on which she trod was heavy with mud. The
night-winds cried around and through the empty branches of two or three
neglected trees in the clearing. The square wooden tavern stood at the
cross-roads. The light from the door made a pathway through the
darkness, up which Susannah walked.

When she entered, the heat and fumes from fire, candles, tobacco-pipes,
and steaming mugs met her. She was accustomed to walking through John
Biery's main room to gain the stair that led to her own; on the whole it
was not disorderly, or Susannah had but to appear on the threshold to
reduce it to order. To-night the men did not let her pass with their
usual civil "Good evening"; they assumed that she had an interest in
their talk.

"Is Mr. Halsey stopping over to Farmer Knight's?" asked Biery. "My! and
they'll be real glad to get him, ye know. Twiced they've been here fur
him. They say that Newell Knight he's possessed with a devil."

Susannah wrapped her shawl tightly across her breast, a nervous movement
caused not by cold but by the desire to withdraw her real self from the