a flash of apprehension--And suddenly, gripped by conviction, he stopped
in the street and stood staring down its length.

Night was coming, the gray spotted with lamps. Each globe a sphere of
pinkish yellow, they stretched before him in a line that marched into a
distance of mingled lights and more accentuated shadows. He looked along
them as if they were bearing his thoughts back over the past, every globe
a station in the retrospect, stage by stage advancing him toward a final
point of certainty.

She didn't know!

It formed in a sentence, detached and exclamatory, in his mind, and he
stood staring at the lamps, people jostling him and some of them turning
to look back.

Now that he had guessed it everything became clear. It was like a piece
of machinery suddenly supplied with a lacking wheel which moved it to
instant action. He walked forward, seeing all the disconnected elements
take their places, seeing the whole, harmonious, intelligently related
and extremely simple. That was what had led him astray. He was not used
to simple solutions; intricate byways, complex turnings and doublings,
were what he was trained to. Working along the familiar lines, he had
overlooked what should have been easily discerned.

The man loved her, wanted to stand well with her and had deceived her as
to his occupation. And it was the older one--Knapp's picture had been in
the paper, she had seen it and it had meant nothing to her. So it was
Garland, the chap with the brains, on toward fifty--but these mountain
men with their outdoor life and unspent energies held their youth long.