“Say,” he roughly opened up, “I’ve got to sell some land and them damn Cresswells are after it. You can have it for five thousand dollars if you git the cash in a week.” With a muttered oath he rode abruptly off; but not before she had seen the tears in his eyes.
All night Sarah Smith lay thinking, and all day she thought and dreamed. Toward dark she walked slowly out the gate and up the highway toward the Cresswell oaks. She had never been within the gates before, and she looked about thoughtfully. The great trees in their regular curving rows must have been planted more than half a century ago. The lawn was well tended and the flowers. Yes, there were signs of taste and wealth. “But it was built on a moan,” cried Miss Smith to herself, passionately, and she would not look round any more, but stared straight ahead where she saw old Colonel Cresswell smoking and reading on the veranda.