Then he walked on leisurely, that the dusk might have reached the village streets before he walked there.

The first house was the smith's, and before the open door two idle urchins lolled.

As he hurried up the street in the gathering gloom he heard them laugh long and loudly behind him.

He glanced round fearingly, and would almost have fled, but that the strange skirts clung about his legs.

And after all it was only a spark that had alighted on the head of one, and not the strange figure they laughed at.
The door of the hotel stood wide open, and the light fell out into the street.