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“Does anyone live there?”

“Miss Ann Bidwell, she’s still there”

“Thank you”

“Goodnight” And Mr Wid himself Why didn’t you ask him, you idiot! Why didn’t you say, Mr Farr? Is that you Mr Farr?

But he knew the answer This time, he wanted it to be Mr Farr And the only way to insure that it was Mr Farr was not to shatter the thin bubble of reality Asking outright ht have evoked an anshich would have crushed hiain No, I’, Mr Widht, could lie in his upstairs bed, and, for an hour or so, could ie of royears of other cities and other worlds This sort of lie was the e You don’t ask a dreaht then, let that ht, at least, assume the identity of a lost person

Mr Widmer walked back across the street, around the side of his store, and up the narrow, dark stairs to the second floor where his as already in bed, asleep

“Suppose it is hi on the house sides, knocking on the back door with a broo her on the phone, leaving his card poked under the doors—suppose?”

He turned on his side

Will she answer? He wondered Will she pay attention, will she do anything? Or will she just sit in her house with the fenced-in porch and no steps going up or down to the door, and let him knock and call her name?

He turned on his other side

Will we see her again next May first, and not until then? And will he wait until then six ?

He got up and went to theThere, far away over the green lawns, at the base of the huge, black house, by the porch which had no steps, stood the oldthere under the autuhtless s?

THE NEXT , very early, Mr Widmer looked down at Miss Bidwell’s lawn

It was empty “I doubt if he was even there,” said Mr Widmer “I doubt I even talked to anyone but a lamp-post That apple was half cider; it turned my head”

It was seven o’clock Mrs Terle and Mrs Adas and ed around the subject “Say, you didn’t see no prowlers near Miss Bidwell’s last night, did you?”