Mamie had risen, and skirting Norbert frostily, touched Eugene upon the shoulder as she went up the steps.  He understood that he was to follow her in-doors, and, after a deep look at the bench where Ariel had seated herself beside Mr. Arp, he obeyed.  Norbert was left a lonely ruin between the cold, twin dogs.  He had wrought desolation this afternoon, and that sweet verdure, his good name, so long in the planting, so carefully tended, was now a dreary waste; yet he contemplated this not so much as his present aspect of splendid isolation.  Frozen by the daughter of the house, forgotten by the visitor, whose conversation with Mr. Arp was carried on in tones so low that he could not understand it, the fat one, though heart-breakingly loath to take himself away, began to comprehend that his hour had struck.  He rose, descended the steps to the bench, and seated himself unexpectedly upon the cement walk at Ariel’s feet.  “Leg’s gone to sleep,” he explained, in response to her startled exclamation; but, like a great soul, ignoring the accident of his position as well as the presence of Mr. Arp, he immediately proceeded:  “Will you go riding with me to-morrow afternoon?”

“Aren’t you very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft?” she asked, with an odd intonation.

“I’m imposed on, often enough,” he replied, rubbing his leg, “by people who think I am!  Why?”

“It is only that your sitting so abruptly upon the ground reminded me of something that happened long ago, before I left Canaan, the last time I met you.”

“I don’t think I knew you before you went away.  You haven’t said if you’ll go riding with me to-morrow.  Please—­”

“Get up,” interrupted Mr. Arp, acidly.  “Somebody ’ll fall over you if you stay there.”

Such a catastrophe in truth loomed imminent.  Judge Pike was rapidly approaching on his way to the house, Bible in hand—­far better in hand than was his temper, for it is an enraging thing to wait five hours in ambush for a man who does not come.  In the darkness a desecration occurred, and Norbert perfected to the last detail whatever had been left incomplete of his own destruction.  He began lumberingly to rise, talking at the same time, urging upon Ariel the charms of the roadside; wild flowers were in blossom, he said, recounting the benefits she might derive through acceptance of his invitation; and having, thus busily, risen to his knees, became aware that some one was passing near him.  This some one Mr. Flitcroft, absorbed in artful persuasions, may have been betrayed by the darkness to mistake for Eugene.  Reaching out for assistance, he mechanically seized upon the skirts of a coat, which he put to the uses of a rope, coming up hand-over-hand with such noble weight and energy that he brought himself to his feet and the owner of the coat to the ground simultaneously.  The latter, hideously astonished, went down with an objurgation so outrageous in venom that Mr. Arp jumped with the shock.  Judge Pike got to his feet quickly, but not so quickly as the piteous Flitcroft betook himself into the deep shadows of the street.  Only a word, hoarse and horror-stricken, was left quivering on the night breeze by this accursed, whom the gods, intent upon his ruin, had early in the day, at his first sight of Ariel, in good truth, made mad:  “Murder!”