On the morning after Labor Day there was a general exodus of city sojourners from the Inn and on September 15 it closed its doors.  The weather was still beautiful and mild, even more so than during the previous month, but East Wellmouth’s roads and lanes were no longer crowded.  The village entered upon its intermediate season, that autumn period of quiet and restful beauty, which those who know and love the Cape consider most delightful of the year.

Galusha enjoyed its beauties hugely.  He could stroll where he pleased now and no charging and bellowing motor car was likely to awaken him from his daydreams and cause him to leap frantically into the gutter.  Sunsets over the western dunes and the Bay were hazily wonderful fantasies of crimson and purple and gold and sapphire, with the nets and poles of the distant fish weirs scattered here and there about the placid water like bits of fairy embroidery.  And then to end his walk by turning in at the Phipps’ gate; the lamplight in the cozy dining room shining a welcome and Martha’s pleasant, attractive face above the teacups.  It was like coming home, like coming to a real home, his home.  He dreaded to think of leaving it—­even for his loved science and the promised “great plan” which the Institute people were to present him that very fall or winter.

He had heard nothing further from them concerning the plan, but he knew he was likely to hear at any moment.  He was well, perfectly well now, and stronger than he had been for a long, long time.  He felt himself abundantly able to take charge of an exploring expedition, or to reorganize a department, to do anything which the Institute might ask him to do.  His guess was that the plan was for another archaeological expedition, one to go farther afield and equipped for more thorough research than any yet sent out.  He himself had urged the need of such an expedition many times, but when the war came all such ideas were given up.  The giving up had been, on his part, although he realized the necessity which prompted it and even urged the yielding to that necessity, a bitter disappointment.

And now—­well, now he could not seem to arouse an atom of real enthusiasm.  He should be too excited to sleep, but he did sleep well.  When he dreamed of Egypt and the tombs of the Ptolemies, there was always a Cape Cod cottage in the foreground.  And the cottage never varied in design; it was always the “Phipps’ place,” and its mistress was always standing in the doorway.  That was the great trouble, he knew it.  He was going to be homesick for that cottage and its contents.  If they might only be transferred with him to Egypt, then the land of the Pharaohs would be even more paradisical than he used to think it.

He told Martha of the promised plan and its call to duty.  Oddly enough, thereafter they discussed it but little.  Other subjects, although mere commonplaces, they seemed to find more interesting.  One evening, however, they were together in the sitting room and Martha said: