THE LONE FIGURE The night was bleak and cold.

All through the melancholy, cheerless day, the first chill of autumn had been in the air.

Toward evening the clouds had parted, showing a steel-colored sky in which the sun went down a great red ball, tinting the foliage across the river with a glow of crimson.

A sun full of rich light but no heat.
The air was heavy with the pungent fragrance of burning leaves.

The gutters along Main Street were full of these fluttering, red memorials of the good old summer-time.
But there were other signs that the melancholy days had come.