He was one of those sensitive men who often know instinctively whether or not their words find response in the heart of the hearer, and to whom it is always a pain to say anything, even the most trivial, which awakes no feeling common to both.
Trenholme himself showed the visitors out of his house with a genial, kindly manner, and when the departing footsteps had ceased to crunch the garden path he still stood on his verandah, looking after the retreating figures and feeling somewhat depressed--not as we might suppose St.Paul would have felt depressed, had he, in like manner, taken the Name for which he lived upon his lips in vain--and to render that name futile by reason of our spiritual insignificance is surely the worst form of profanity--but he felt depressed in the way that a gentleman might who, having various interests at heart, had failed in a slight attempt to promote one of them.
It was the evening of one of the balmy days of a late Indian summer.

The stars of the Canadian sky had faded and become invisible in the light of a moon that hung low and glorious, giving light to the dry, sweet-scented haze of autumn air.

Trenholme looked out on a neat garden plot, and beyond, in the same enclosure, upon lawns of ragged, dry-looking grass, in the centre of which stood an ugly brick house, built apparently for some public purpose.

This was the immediate outlook.

Around, the land was undulating; trees were abundant, and were more apparent in the moonlight than the flat field spaces between them.
The graceful lines of leafless elms at the side of the main road were clearly seen.