over the uneven boards of the porch. At this hour
there was usually a stir and smell of cooking from
the kitchen; but now the kitchen window was blank
and still. Darkness gathered slowly about him; it
obscured the black and white check, the red thread,
of his suit; it flowed in about him and reduced him
to the common greyness of the porch, the sod, the
stream. It changed him from a man with a puzzled,
seamed visage into a man with no especial, perceptible
features, and then into a shadow, an inconsequential
blur less important than the supports for
the wooden covering above.

[[274]]

p273 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p274w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p275

v?