Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/64

 taken his pen and added, "Among those who paid Brinoë fleeting visits during the month were Father d'Astier, the well-known dignitary, and Princess Faustino d'Orobelli. She wore, etc., etc., etc." At this season, when there was no one in Brinoë every item was precious. Now he simply took up the papers and, tearing them twice across, threw them into the waste-paper basket. Then, feeling the need of air, he pushed open the windows and as he stood there looking down at the river, he found himself thinking of Miss Fosdick.

"She is of a suitable age," he thought. "Neither too young nor too old. She is not a widow, so she will have had no experience. She is innocent, more innocent than myself. I must find out more about her."

As he turned away from the window it occurred to him that all the evening he had been aware of some vague thing disturbing himself and all the life about him. Perhaps it was only because the wind from Africa had died down at last.

He was intensely lonely. 

NE crisp autumn morning in the year 1840 a little after dawn there appeared out of the mists covering the Illinois prairies a great covered wagon drawn by four oxen and guided by a man of great physical power and beauty who wore his hair cropped at the line of his shoulders and a black curl-