His heart was beating tumultuously in expectation of the meeting that seemed so near.

He alighted from the fly, dismissed the driver, and walked rapidly across a field leading by a short cut to the green on which Captain Sedgewick's house stood.

This field brought him to the side of the green opposite the Captain's cottage.

He stopped for a moment as he came through the little wooden gate, and looked across the grass, where a regiment of geese was marching towards the still pool of willow-shadowed water.
The shutters of the upper rooms were closed, and there was a board above the garden-gate.

The cottage was to be let.
Gilbert Fenton's heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to cease beating altogether.