To reach his own home he would naturally go by the manse, unless he went a little out of his way. It must be confessed that Red had acquired the habit, since Black left town, of going that little out of his way, when coming home at night from this part of town, to avoid passing the Stone Church and the deserted manse close by in its large shadow. He didn’t know quite why he should have yielded, at first unconsciously, afterward with full recognition of his feeling about it, to the wish not to see the drawn shades and darkened windows of his friend’s former habitation. But on this evening, somehow, almost without his own consent he found himself turning at that corner to go by the house.
Dark? Yes, it was dark--almost darker than usual, it seemed; though this was undoubtedly because the nearest arc-light was burning more feebly than ordinarily to-night. Anyhow, the place was enveloped in gloom. It presented a very different aspect from that which had belonged to it during the term of Black’s residence. His study had been one of the big square rooms upon the front, its windows always lighted in the evening, the shades drawn only low enough to insure privacy, not to prevent the warm glow of the study light from telling its friendly tale of the occupant within, at home to all comers at all hours, as he had been at pains to make understood.
Red didn’t like to look at those dark windows. Many and many a time during the last months before Black’s departure, after the friendship between the two men had become a known quantity no longer negligible, the big doctor had turned aside from the straight road home to make a late call in that study, the light beckoning him more and more irresistibly. Weary, or blue, or fuming over some unlucky or harassing happening in his work, he had gone stumbling or storming in, always to find a hearty welcome, and such quiet understanding and comradeship as soon eased the situation, whether he knew it then or only afterward. Many a pipe had he smoked while sitting in Black’s old red-cushioned rocker--to which he had taken an odd fancy--and many a story had he told, or listened to.... There could be no pipe-smoking there to-night, nor telling of stories. The fire upon that hearthstone was cold. God only knew when it would be lighted again, or whose hand would light it.