The autumn was beginning, and over his thoughts, raised like a ghost from the ashes of the summer, stole a vague vision of the winter.

He saw for a second the driving slant of the snow-storm over the old drifting road, he saw the white slant of Sylvia's house-roof through it.

And at the same time a curious, pleasant desire, which might be primitive and coeval with the provident passion of the squirrels and honey-bees, thrilled him.
Then he dismissed it bitterly.

What need of winter-stores and provisions for sweet home-comfort in the hearts of freezing storms was there for him?
What did he care whether or not he laid in stores of hearth-wood, of garden produce, of apples, just for himself in his miserable solitude?
The inborn desire of Northern races at the approach of the sterile winters, containing, as do all desires to insure their fulfilment, the elements of human pleasure, failed suddenly to move him when he remembered that his human life, in one sense, was over.
[Illustration: "He remained there motionless"] Opposite him across the road, in an old orchard, was a tree full of apples.

The low sun struck them, and they showed spheres of rosy orange, as brilliant as Atalanta's apples of gold, against the background of dark violet clouds.