CHAPTER IV
THE WOOD WALK
ABANDONED by Rader, left by the women to the melancholy sight of a spent breakfast table, Carron put on his hat at an exasperated backward angle and opened the outer door.
Little doors opening without the formality of a hall, with delightful directness on the forest, seemed to be a characteristic of this old part of the house. He stepped from one soft greenish light into another deeper and more sharply marked with shadows. A warmer and fresher air met him, and the ground sprung under his feet. The stir of peace was in the underwoods; but peace was not at all what Carron wanted. This veil of branches was monotonous and irritating. He wanted again a glimpse of mountains, of the sudden craggy heads against the sky, of the scattered stone heaps at their feet, of the dramatic lone tree, and the thin river—the country where such a creature as Son of the Wind might inhabit. He walked slowly along the side of the house, looking upon the ground, seeing, in every
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