Two or three responded to this inarticulate greeting, and then her lips parted gladly, and her voice, clear though low, answered them with a sweet good-humor that had something at once peculiar and pathetic in it.

She passed under a broad archway at one side of the bank offices, leading to the house entrance, and to the sloping garden beyond.

A private door into the bank was ajar, and a dark, sombre face was peering out of it into the semi-darkness.

Phebe's feet paused for an instant.
"Good-morning, Mr.Acton," she said, with a little rustic courtesy.

But he drew back quickly, and she heard him draw the bolt inside the door, as if he had neither seen nor heard her.