When he reached the opposite bank he took off his skates and asked Jane, who strayed intentionally in his direction, to tell Miss Wylie that he was gone, and would skate no more there.

Without adding a word of explanation he left her and made for his dwelling.

As he went down into the hollow where the road passed through the plantation on the college side of the chalet he descried a boy, in the uniform of the post office, sliding along the frozen ditch.

A presentiment of evil tidings came upon him like a darkening of the sky.

He quickened his pace.
"Anything for me ?" he said.
The boy, who knew him, fumbled in a letter case and produced a buff envelope.