He did manage to rise at last and to kiss his mother good night. He would have kissed Olwen, too, but she impatiently drew away. His final appeal to Mattie to come over and see them, “any day but Thursday, when we’ll all be at the horse-show,” was received with more warmth and cordiality than this girl had yet displayed.

What were the thoughts, day after day, year after year, that beat about in the secretive brain behind that heavily-featured face? What was this queer attraction which he felt for her, so different from the interest excited in him by her father and by the little girl?

Wolf couldn’t help pondering on these things as he made his way out of the silent town, accompanied by hardly any mortal sound except the creak of his own heavy boots and the thud of his own heavy stick.

It was not until he was clear of the last houses of Ramsgard, clear of both workhouse and cemetery, that the Smith house, the Smith daughter, the Smith granddaughter, faded from his brain.