And yet here he was, paused in the avenue with the engine running, six house calls to make, feeling sorrow for a wounded holly tree. It disturbed him. But that it portended something was a thought he would not pursue. He rolled up the window, went down the avenue and attempted, in that fatuous phrase, to put it out of his mind. That there is no such place for putting things was proven by the number of times the image of the tree returned to Doctor Troy that morning and afternoon.
