Now Skipperton is fifty-two. His wife had left him two years ago, because she couldn't live with his bad temper. She had met a quiet university teacher in Boston, and had married with him. Skip had intense hunger to keep the relations with their daughter, Maggie, who was then fifteen. With the help of clever lawyers he succeeded in it. A few months after he separated from his wife, Skip had a heart attack. So he looked around, and bought a small farm in Maine with a comfortable farmhouse. A little river, the Coldstream, ran along the bottom of the garden, and the house was called Coldstream Heights. There was only one thing that annoyed him: his neighbour.
