Not that I say any , myself . I 'm sorry for him , and I believe he 's done his best . But I ca n't stop other people from talking . '' One evening Harmon Andrews came in with a fresh budget of news . `` The Baxter business is pretty near wound up at last , '' he said , as he lighted his pipe . `` Peter has got his lawsuits settled and has hushed up the talk about swindling , somehow . Trust him for slipping out of a scrape clean and clever . He do n't seem to worry any , but Lige looks like a walking skeleton . Some folks pity him , but I say he should have kept the run of things better and not have trusted everything to Peter . I hear he 's going out West in the Spring , to take up land in Alberta and try his hand at farming . Best thing he can do , I guess . Folks hereabouts have had enough of the Baxter breed . Newbridge will be well rid of them . '' Sara , who had been sitting in the dark corner by the stove , suddenly stood up , letting the black cat slip from her lap to the floor . Mrs. Eben glanced at her apprehensively , for she was afraid the girl was going to break out in a tirade against the complacent Harmon . But Sara only walked fiercely out of the kitchen , with a sound as if she were struggling for breath . In the hall she snatched a scarf from the wall , flung open the front door , and rushed down the lane in the chill , pure air of the autumn twilight . Her heart was throbbing with the pity she always felt for bruised and baited creatures . On and on she went heedlessly , intent only on walking away her pain , over gray , brooding fields and winding slopes , and along the skirts of ruinous , dusky pine woods , curtained with fine spun purple gloom . Her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns , and the moist night wind , loosed from wild places far away , blew her hair about her face .
At last she XXXXX to a little rustic gate , leading into a shadowy wood-lane .
's came got letting pine struggling throbbing walking winding wound