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Then on a sudden he caught a glimpse of a light burning somewhere, that appeared and vanished again as he moved, and fifty yards more brought him to a wide sweep, a pair of gate-posts with the gate fastened back, and a lodge on the left-hand side.
Two days after Regie had taken the turn towards health, and on the afternoon of the very same day when Doctor Brown had interviewed the Bishop's rheumatism, the episcopal carriage might have been seen squeezing its august proportions into the narrow drive of Warpington Vicarage; at least, it was always called the drive, though the horses' noses were reflected in the glass of the front-door while the hind-wheels still jarred the gate-posts.
A mile, or less, of tree-bordered road sloped gently from the Residency gate-posts to the walled City of Victory, backed by craggy, red-grey spurs of the Aravalli range, hidden almost in feathery heads of banyan, acacia, and neem a dusty, well-ordered oasis, holding its own against the stealthy oncoming of the desert.
The exhilaration she had experienced when she triumphed over Richard Morton and escaped from him, increased rather than diminished as she sped onward, and when, almost an hour later, she guided the car between the huge gate-posts which admitted it to the grounds of Cedarcrest, and followed the winding driveway toward the entrance to the stone mansion, she was altogether a different Patricia Langdon from the one who had started out, in company with the young Westerner, shortly after five o'clock that afternoon.
Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations for the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site of Pfouts and Russell's stone building there was a corral, the gate-posts of which were strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to which the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the platform.
The sun broke out from behind a cloud, her brass and glass caught fire and twinkled gaily, the snow sparkled, the gate-posts shone at her. She left the garage without a regret in her heart, with not a thought in her head, save that in a minute she would be safe, no accident could stop her, she would be abroad upon the magic, the unbelievable journey.
Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates and stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir John's ancestors wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for all their enemies must have run for their lives at the very first sight of them.
"I shall be glad when we don't have to think about 'em at all," sighed Mrs. Perkins, pouring out the candidate's coffee. "They've really been a care to me. I don't like the idea of putting them on the porch, or on the gate-posts either. They'll have to be kept clean, and goodness knows I can't ask the girls to go out in the middle of winter to clean them if they are on the gate-posts."
The padlocked gates to the small inclosures stood open, while gentle girls passed in and out with their Easter flowers of remembrance. On the high churchyard wall and great gate-posts perched many a mocking-bird, and the golden light changed the twilight under the live-oaks to a misty warmth of color.
"And I do think," she said, gravely, "that it's very good of me to bring them such a nice dog to keep the tramps off." A large gray cat, sunning herself on one of the gate-posts, was the only sign of life about the house. But not for long.
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