At the Twenty-second Street corner she paused for the merest moment for breath and for a quick glance into the dark lane of the diverging street.  The double row of stone houses, blank-faced and shouldering one another like paper dolls cut from a folded newspaper, stood back indistinctly against the night, most of the high stoops cushioned in untrod snow, the fourth of them from the right, lean-looking and undistinguished, except that the ash-can at its curb was a glorified urn of snow.

As she stood there the ache in Marjorie Clark’s throat threatened to become articulate.  She took up her swift pace again, but onward.

Ten minutes later, within the great heated mausoleum of the Pennsylvania Terminal, she bought a ticket for Glendale.  On track ten the eight-eighteen had already made its first jerk outward as she made her dash for it.

In the spick swaddling clothes of new-laid snow, its roadways and garden beds, macadamized streets and runty lanes all of one identity, Glendale lay in a miniature valley beneath the railroad elevation; meandered down a slight hillside and out toward the open country.

Immediately removed from the steep flight of stairs leading down from the gabled station, small houses with roofs that wore the snow like coolies’ hoods appeared in uncertain ranks forming uncertain streets.  Lights gleamed in frequent windows, throwing squares of gold-colored light in the snow.

Here and there where shades were drawn the grotesque shadow of a fir-tree stood against the window; silhouettes moved past.  Picket fences marched crookedly along.  At each intersection of streets a white arc-light dangled, hissing and spreading its radiance to the very stoops of adjoining houses.

Two blocks from the left of the station Marjorie Clark paused in the white shower of one of these arc-lights.  The wind had hauled around to the north and its raw breath galloped across the open country, stinging her.

Across the street, diagonal, a low house of too many angles, the snow banked in a high drift across its north flank, stood well back in shadow, except that on the peak of its small veranda, and clearly defined by the arc-light, a weather-vane spun to the gale.

Marjorie Clark ducked her head to the onslaught of wind and crossed the street, kicking up a fine flurry of snow before her.  A convoy of trees stood in military precision down the quiet avenue, their bare branches embracing her in immediate shadows.  The gate creaked when she drew it backward, scraping outward and upon the sidewalk a hill of loose snow.  Before that small house a garden lay tucked beneath its blanket, a scrawny line of hedge fluted with snow inclosing it and a few stalks that would presently flower.  The hood of the dark veranda, surmounted with its high ruche of snow, seemed to incline, invitational.

Yet when Marjorie Clark pulled out the old-fashioned bell-handle her face sickened as she stood and she was down the steps again, the tightness squeezing her throat, her gloved hands fumbling the gate latch, and her knee flung against it, pressing it outward.