Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/51

Rh own stories worth the strain on the eyes. And he also wondered if absolute solitude was quite the thing necessary to the composition of the novel that should forever silence those who sneered at his ability.

Absolute solitude! Only the crackle of the fire, the roar of the wind, and the ticking of his watch bore him company. He strode to the window and looked down at the few dim lights that proclaimed the existence of Upper Asquewan Falls. Some where, down there, was the Commercial House. Somewhere the girl who had wept so bitterly in that gloomy little waiting-room. She was only three miles away, and the thought cheered Mr. Magee. After all, he was not on a desert island.

And yet—he was alone, intensely, almost pain fully, alone. Alone in a vast moaning house that must be his only home until he could go back to the gay city with his masterpiece. What a mas terpiece! As though with a surgeon's knife it would lay bare the hearts of men. No tricks of plot, no—

Mr. Magee paused. For sharply in the silence the bell of his room telephone rang out.