“Wait a minute!” whispered Jim Trivett. “I think this is the place.”
They had turned away from the centre of the dreary tobacco town. For a quarter of an hour they had walked briskly through drab autumnal streets, descending finally a long rutted hill that led them, past a thinning squalor of cheap houses, almost to the outskirts. It was three weeks before Christmas: the foggy air was full of chill menace. There was a brooding quietness, broken by far small sounds. They turned into a sordid little road, unpaved, littered on both sides with negro shacks and the dwellings of poor whites. It was a world of rickets. The road was unlighted. Their feet stirred dryly through fallen leaves.
They paused before a two-storey frame house. A lamp burned dimly behind lowered yellow shades, casting a murky pollen out upon the smoky air.
“Wait a minute,” said Jim Trivett, in a low voice, “I’ll find out.”
They heard scuffling steps through the leaves. In a moment a negro man prowled up.
“Hello, John,” said Jim Trivett, almost inaudibly.
“Evenin’, boss!” the negro answered wearily, but in the same tone.
“We’re looking for Lily Jones’house,” said Jim Trivett. “Is this it?”
“Yes, suh,” said the negro, “dis is it.”
Eugene leaned against a tree, listening to their quiet conspiratorial talk. The night, vast and listening, gathered about him its evil attentive consciousness. His lips were cold and trembled. He thrust a cigarette between them and, shivering, turned up the thick collar of his overcoat.
“Does Miss Lily know you’re comin’?” the negro asked.
“No,” said Jim Trivett. “Do you know her?”
“Yes, suh,” said the negro. “I’ll go up dar wid yo’.”
Eugene waited in the shadow of the tree while the two men went up to the house. They avoided the front veranda, and went around to the side. The negro rapped gently at a latticed door. There were always latticed doors. Why?
He waited, saying farewell to himself. He stood over his life,
