They walked side by side now, with such swinging steps that it was not long before they were beyond the houses and out into what was almost open country. It annoyed him that she remained so silent. Did she suppose he had come to see his father’s grave in a vein of sentimental commiseration?

“What’s that ?” he exclaimed, pointing to a ramshackle group of sheds that seemed fenced off from the road with some unnatural and sinister precaution.

Selena Gault’s reply made his touchiness seem captious and misplaced.

“Can’t you see what that is, boy? It’s the slaughterhouse! You’ve only to take the shadiest, quietest road to find ’em in any town!”

They were soon skirting the edge of the neat oak palings that ran along the leafy purlieus of Ramsgard Cemetery.