Such were Austen’s thoughts as he drove to Fairview that September afternoon when the leaves were turning their white backs to the northwest breeze.  The sun was still high, and the distant hills and mountains were as yet scarce stained with blue, and stood out in startling clearness against the sky.  Would he see her?  That were a pain he scarce dared contemplate.

He reached the arched entrance, was on the drive.  Here was the path again by which she had come down the hillside; here was the very stone on which she had stood—­awaiting him.  Why?  Why had she done that?  Well-remembered figure amidst the yellow leaves dancing in the sunlight!  Here he had stopped, perforce, and here he had looked up into his face and smiled and spoken!

At length he gained the plateau across which the driveway ran, between round young maples, straight to Fairview House, and he remembered the stares from the tea-tables, and how she had come out to his rescue.  Now the lawn was deserted, save for a gardener among the shrubs.  He rang the stable-bell, and as he waited for an answer to his summons, the sense of his remoteness from these surroundings of hers deepened, and with a touch of inevitable humour he recalled the low-ceiled bedroom at Mr. Jenney’s and the kitchen in Hanover Street; the annual cost of the care of that lawn and driveway might well have maintained one of these households.

He told the stable-boy to wait.  It is to be remarked as curious that the name of the owner of the house on Austen’s lips brought the first thought of him to Austen’s mind.  He was going to see and speak with Mr. Flint, a man who had been his enemy ever since the day he had come here and laid down his pass on the president’s desk; the man who—­so he believed until three days ago—­had stood between him and happiness.  Well, it did not matter now.

Austen followed the silent-moving servant through the hall.  Those were the stairs which knew her feet, these the rooms—­so subtly flower-scented—­she lived in; then came the narrow passage to the sterner apartment of the master himself.  Mr. Flint was alone, and seated upright behind the massive oak desk, from which bulwark the president of the Northeastern was wont to meet his opponents and his enemies; and few visitors came into his presence, here or elsewhere, who were not to be got the better of, if possible.  A life-long habit had accustomed Mr. Flint to treat all men as adversaries until they were proved otherwise.  His square, close-cropped head, his large features, his alert eyes, were those of a fighter.

He did not rise, but nodded.  Suddenly Austen was enveloped in a flame of wrath that rose without warning and blinded him, and it was with a supreme effort to control himself that he stopped in the doorway.  He was frightened, for he had felt this before, and he knew it for the anger that demands physical violence.

“Come in, Mr. Vane,” said the president.