Kitabı oku: «That Girl Montana», sayfa 17
He offered his hand to her, sheepishly, and she gave it a vixenish slap.
“Don’t try any of your skim-milk praise on me,” she said, tartly. “Huh! You, that Lorena thought was a pillar of cultured society! When, the Lord knows, you wouldn’t have known how to read the addresses on your own letters if I hadn’t taught you!”
He moved to the door in a crestfallen manner, and stood there a moment, moistening his lips, and apparently swallowing words that could not be uttered.
“That’s so, Lavina,” he said, at last, and went out.
“There!” she muttered aggrievedly – “that’s Alf Leek, just as he always was. Give him a chance, and he’d ride over any one; but get the upper hand of him, and he is meeker than Moses. Not that much meekness is needed to come up to Moses, either.” Then, after an impatient tattoo, she exclaimed:
“Gracious me! I do wish he hadn’t looked so crushed, and had talked back a little.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MURDER
That evening, as the dusk fell, a slight figure in an Indian dress slipped to the low brush back of the cabin, and thence to the uplands.
It was ’Tana, ready to endure all the wilds of the woods, rather than stay there and meet again the man she had met the night before. She had sent the squaw away; she had arranged in Mrs. Huzzard’s tent a little game of cards that would hold the attention of Lyster and the others; and then she had slipped away, that she might, for just once more, feel free on the mountain, as she had felt when they first located their camp in the sweet grass of the Twin Springs.
The moon would be up after a while. She could not walk far, but she meant to sit somewhere up there in the high ground until the moon should roll up over the far mountains.
The mere wearing of the Indian dress gave her a feeling of being herself once more, for in the pretty conventional dress made for her by Mrs. Huzzard, she felt like another girl – a girl she did not know very well.
In the southwest long streaks of red and yellow lay across the sky, and a clear radiance filled the air, as it does when a new moon is born after the darkness. She felt the beauty of it all, and stretched out her arms as though to draw the peaks of the hills to her.
But, as she stepped forward, a form arose before her – a tall, decided form, and a decided voice said:
“No, ’Tana, you have gone far enough.”
“Dan!”
“Yes – it is Dan this time, and not the other fellow. If he is waiting for you to-night, I will see that he waits a long time.”
“You – you!” she murmured, and stepped back from him. Then, her first fright over, she straightened herself defiantly.
“Why do you think any one is waiting for me?” she demanded. “What do you know? I am heartsick with all this hiding, and – and deceit. If you know the truth, speak out, and end it all!”
“I can’t say any more than you know already,” he answered – “not so much; but last night a man was in your cabin, a man you know and quarreled with. I didn’t hear you; don’t think I was spying on you. A miner who passed the cabin heard your voices and told me something was wrong. You don’t give me any right to advise you or dictate to you, ’Tana, but one thing you shall not do, that is, steal to the woods to meet him. And if I find him in your cabin, I promise you he sha’n’t die of old age.”
“You would kill him?”
“Like a snake!” and his voice was harsher, colder, than she had ever heard it. “I’m not asking you any questions, ’Tana. I know it was the man whom you – saw that night at the spring, and would not let me follow. I know there is something wrong, or he would come to see you, like a man, in daylight. If the others here knew it, they would say things not kind to you. And that is why it sha’n’t go on.”
“Sha’n’t? What right have you – to – to – ”
“You will say none,” he answered, curtly, “because you do not know.”
“Do not know what?” she interrupted, but he only drew a deep breath and shook his head.
“Tana, don’t meet this man again,” he said, pleadingly. “Trust me to judge for you. I don’t want to be harsh with you. I don’t want you to go away with hard thoughts against me. But this has got to stop – you must promise me.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’d look for the man, and he never would meet you again.”
A little shiver ran over her as he spoke. She knew what he meant, and, despite her bitter words last night to her visitor, the thought was horrible to her that Dan —
She covered her face with her hands and turned away.
“Don’t do that, little girl,” he said, and laid his hand on her arm. “’Tana!”
She flung off his hand as though it stung her, and into her mind flashed remembrance of Jake Emmons from Spokane – of him and his words.
“Don’t touch me!” she half sobbed. “Don’t you say another word to me! I am going away to-morrow, and I have promised to marry Max Lyster.”
His hand dropped to his side, and his face shone white in the wan glimmer of the stars.
“You have promised that?” he said, at last, drawing his breath hard through his shut teeth. “Well – it is right, I suppose – right. Come! I will take you back to him now. He is the best one to guard you. Come!”
She drew away and looked from him across to where the merest rim of the rising moon was to be seen across the hills. The thought of that other night came to her, the night when they had stood close to each other in the moonlight. How happy she had been for that one little space of time! And now – Ah! she scarcely dare allow him to speak kindly to her, lest she grow weak enough to long for that blind content once more.
“Come, Tana.”
“Go. I will follow after a little,” she answered, without turning her head.
“I may never trouble you to walk with you again,” he said, in a low, constrained tone; “but this time I must see you safe in the tent before I leave.”
“Leave! Going! Where to?” she asked, and her voice trembled in spite of herself. She clasped her hands tightly, and he could see the flash of the ring he had given her. She had put it on with the Indian dress.
“That does not matter much, does it?” he returned; “but somewhere, far enough up the lake not to trouble you again while you stay. Come.”
She walked beside him without another word; words seemed so useless. She had said words over and over again to herself all that day – words of his wrong to her in not telling her of that other woman, words of reproach, bitter and keen; yet none of her reasoning kept her from wanting to touch his hand as he walked beside her.
But she did not. Even when they reached the level by the springs, she only looked her farewell to him, but did not speak.
“Good-by,” he said, in a voice that was not like Dan’s voice.
She merely bowed her head, and walked away toward the tent where she heard Mrs. Huzzard laughing.
She halted near the cabin, and then hurried on, dreading to enter it yet, lest she should meet the man she was trying to avoid.
Overton watched her until she reached the tent. The moon had just escaped the horizon, and threw its soft misty light over all the place. He pulled his hat low over his eyes, and, turning, took the opposite direction.
Only a few minutes elapsed when Lyster remembered he had promised Dan to look after Harris, and rose to go to the cabin.
“I will go, too,” said ’Tana, filled with nervous dread lest he encounter some one on her threshold, though she had all reason to expect that her disguised visitor had come and gone ere that.
“Well, well, ’Tana, you are a restless mortal,” said Mrs. Huzzard. “You’ve only just come, and now you must be off again. What did you do that you wanted to be all alone for this evening? Read verses, I’ll go bail.”
“No, I didn’t read verses,” answered ’Tana. “But you needn’t go along to the cabin.”
“Well, I will then. You are not fit to sleep alone. And, if it wasn’t for the beastly snakes! – ”
“We will go and see Harris,” said the girl, and so they entered his cabin, where he sat alone with a bright light burning.
Some newspapers, brought by the captain, were spread before him on a rough reading stand rigged up by one of the miners.
He looked pale and tired, as though the effort of perusing them had been rather too much for him.
Listen as she might, the girl could hear never a sound from her own cabin. She stood by the blanket door, connecting the two rooms, but not a breath came to her. She sighed with relief at the certainty that he had come and gone. She would never see him again.
“Shall I light your lamp?” asked Lyster; and, scarce waiting for a reply, he drew back the blanket and entered the darkness of the other cabin.
Two of the miners came to the door just then, detailed to look after Harris for the night. One was the good-natured, talkative Emmons.
“Glad to see you are so much better, miss,” he said, with an expansive smile. “But you scared the wits nearly out of me this morning.”
Then they heard the sputter of a match in the next room, and a sharp, startled cry from Lyster, as the blaze gave a feeble light to the interior.
He staggered back among the rest, with the dying match in his fingers, and his face ashen gray.
“Snakes!” half screamed Mrs. Huzzard. “Oh, my! oh, my!”
’Tana, after one look at Lyster, tried to enter the room, but he caught and held her.
“Don’t, dear! – don’t go in there! It’s awful – awful!”
“What’s wrong?” demanded one of the miners, and picked up a lamp from beside Harris.
“Look! It is Akkomi!” answered Lyster.
At the name ’Tana broke from him and ran into the room, even before the light reached it.
But she did not take many steps. Her foot struck against something on the floor, an immovable body and a silent one.
“Akkomi – sure enough,” said the miner, as he saw the Indian’s blanket. “Drunk, I suppose – Indian fashion.”
But as he held the light closer, he took hold of the girl’s arm, and tried to lead her from the scene.
“You’d better leave this to us, miss,” he added, in a grave tone. “The man ain’t drunk. He’s been murdered!”
’Tana, white as death itself, shook off his grasp and stood with tightly clasped hands, unheeding the words of horror around her, scarce hearing the shriek of Mrs. Huzzard, as that lady, forgetful even of the snakes, sank to the floor, a very picture of terror.
’Tana saw the roll of money scattered over the couch; the little bag of free gold drawn from under the pillow. He had evidently been stooping to secure it when the assassin crept behind him and left him dead there, with a knife sticking between his shoulders.
“The very knife you had to-day!” said Lyster, horror-stricken at the sight.
The miner with the lamp turned and looked at her strangely, and his eyes dropped from her face to her clasped hands, on which the ring of the snakes glittered.
“Your knife?” he asked, and others, attracted by Mrs. Huzzard’s scream, stood around the doors and looked at her too.
She nodded her head, scarce understanding the significance of it, and never taking her eyes from the dead man, whose face was yet hidden.
“He may not be dead,” she said, at last. “Look!”
“Oh, he’s dead, safe enough,” and Emmons lifted his hand. “Was he trying to rob you?”
“I – no – I don’t know,” she answered, vaguely.
Then another man turned the body over, and utter surprise was on every face; for, though it was Akkomi’s blanket, it was a much younger man who lay there.
“A white man, by Heavens!” said the miner who had first entered. “A white man, with brown paint on his face and hands! But, look here!” and he pulled down the collar of the dead man’s shirt, and showed a skin fair as a child’s.
“Something terribly crooked here,” he continued. “Where is Overton?”
Overton! At the name her very heart grew cold within her. Had he not threatened he would kill the man who visited her at night? Had he come straight to the cabin after leaving her? Had he kept his word? Had he —
“I think Overton left camp after supper – started for the lake,” answered some one.
“Well, we’ll do our best to get it straight without him, then. Some of you see what time it is. This man has been dead about a half hour. Mr. Lyster, you had better write down all about it; and, if any one here has any information to give, let him have it.”
His eyes were on the girl’s face, but she said nothing, and he bent to wipe off the stain from the dead man’s face. Some one brought water, and in a little while was revealed the decidedly handsome face of a man about forty-five years old.
“Do any of you know him?” asked the miner, who, by circumstance, appeared to have been given the office of speaker – “look – all of you.”
One after another the men approached, but shook their heads; until an old miner, gray-haired and weather-beaten, gave vent to a half-smothered oath at sight of him.
“Know him?” he exclaimed. “Well, I do, though it’s five years since I saw him. Heavens! I’d rather have found him alive than dead, though, for there is a standing reward offered for him by two States. Why, it’s the card-sharper, horse-thief and renegade – Lee Holly!”
“But who could have killed him?”
“That is Overton’s knife,” said one of the men.
“But Overton had not had it since noon,” said ’Tana, speaking for the first time in explanation. “I borrowed it then.”
“You borrowed it? For what?”
“Oh – I forget. To cut a stick with, I think.”
“You think. I’m sorry to speak rough to a lady, miss but this is a time for knowing – not thinking.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Lyster.
The man looked at him squarely.
“Nothing to offend innocent folks,” he answered. “A murder has been done in this lady’s room, with a knife she acknowledges she has had possession of. It’s natural enough to question her first of all.”
The color had crept into her face once more. She knew what the man meant, and knew that the longer they looked on her with suspicion, the more time Overton would have to escape. Then, when they learned they were on a false scent, it would be late – too late to start after him. She wished he had taken the money and the gold. She shuddered as she thought him a murderer – the murderer of that man; but, with what skill she could, she would keep them off his track.
Her thoughts ran fast, and a half smile touched her lips. Even with that dead body at her feet, she was almost happy at the hope of saving him. The others noticed it, and looked at her in wonder. Lyster said:
“You are right. But Miss Rivers could know nothing of this. She has been with us since the moon rose, and that is more than a half-hour.”
“No, only fifteen minutes,” said one of the men.
“Well, where were you for the half-hour before the moon rose?” asked the man who seemed examiner. “That is really the time most interesting to this case.”
“Why, good heavens, man!” cried Lyster, but ’Tana interrupted:
“I was walking up on the hill about that time.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
Mrs. Huzzard groaned dismally, and Lyster caught ’Tana by the hand.
“’Tana! think what you are saying. You don’t realize how serious this is.”
“One more question,” and the man looked at her very steadily. “Were you not expecting this man to-night?”
“I sha’n’t answer any more of your questions,” she answered, coldly.
Lyster turned on the man with clenched hands and a face white with anger.
“How dare you insult her with such a question?” he asked, hoarsely. “How could it be possible for Miss Rivers to know this renegade horse-thief?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the man, drawing a long breath and looking at the girl. “It ain’t a pleasant thing to do; but as we have no courts up here, we have to straighten out crimes in a camp the best way we can. My name is Saunders. That man over there is right – this is Lee Holly; and I am sure now that I saw him leave this cabin last night. I passed the cabin and heard voices – hers and a man’s. I heard her say: ‘While I can’t quite decide to kill you myself, I hope some one else will.’ The rest of their words were not so clear. I told Overton when he came back, but the man was gone then. You ask me how I dare think she could tell something of this if she chose. Well, I can’t help it. She is wearing a ring I’ll swear I saw Lee Holly wear three years ago, at a card table in Seattle. I’ll swear it! And he is lying here dead in her room, with a knife sticking in him that she had possession of to-day. Now, gentlemen, what do you think of it yourselves?”
CHAPTER XXIII.
GOOD-BY
“Oh, ’Tana, it is awful – awful!” and poor Mrs. Huzzard rocked herself in a spasm of woe. “And to think that you won’t say a word – not a single word! It just breaks my heart.”
“Now, now! I’ll say lots of things if you will talk of something besides murders. And I’ll mend your broken heart when this trouble is all over, you will see!”
“Over! I’m mightily afraid it is only commencing. And you that cool and indifferent you are enough to put one crazy! Oh, if Dan Overton was only here.”
The girl smiled. All the hours of the night had gone by. He had at least twelve hours’ start, and the men of the camp had not yet suspected him for even a moment. They had questioned Harris, and he told them, by signs, that no man had gone through his cabin, no one had been in since dark; but he had heard a movement in the other room. The knife he had seen ’Tana take into the other room long before dark.
“And some one quarreling with this Holly – or following him – may have chanced on it and used it,” contested Lyster, who was angered, dismayed, and puzzled at ’Tana, quite as much as at the finding of the body. Her answers to all questions were so persistently detrimental to her own cause.
“Don’t be uneasy – they won’t hang me,” she assured him. “Think of them hanging any one for killing Lee Holly! The man who did it – if he knows whom he was settling for – was a fool not to face the camp and get credit for it. Every man would have shaken hands with him. But just because there is a little mystery about it, they try to make it out a crime. Pooh!”
“Oh, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, totally scandalized. “A murder! Of course it is a crime – the greatest.”
“I don’t think so. It is a greater crime to bring a soul into the world and then neglect it – let it drift into any hell on earth that nets it – than it is to send a soul out of the world, to meet heaven, if it deserves it. There are times when murder is justifiable, but there are certain other crimes that nothing could ever justify.”
“Why, ’Tana!” and Mrs. Huzzard looked at her helplessly. But Miss Slocum gave the girl a more understanding regard.
“You speak very bitterly for a young girl; as if you had thought a great deal on this question.”
“I have,” she acknowledged, promptly; “you think it is not a very nice question for girls to study about, don’t you? Well, it isn’t nice, but it’s true. I happen to be one of the souls dragged into life by people who didn’t think they had responsibilities. Miss Slocum, maybe that is why I am extra bitter on the subject.”
“But not – not against your parents, ’Tana?” said Mrs. Huzzard, in dismay.
The girl’s mouth drew hard and unlovely at the question.
“I don’t know much about religion,” she said, after a little, “and I don’t know that it matters much – now don’t faint, Mrs. Huzzard! but I’m pretty certain old married men who had families were the ones who laid down the law about children in the Bible. They say ’spare the rod and spoil the child,’ and then say ‘honor your father and mother.’ They seem to think it a settled thing that all fathers and mothers are honorable – but they ain’t; and that all children need beating – and they don’t.”
“Oh, ’Tana!”
“And I think it is that one-sided commandment that makes folks think that all the duty must go from children to the parents, and not a word is said of the duty people owe to the souls they bring into the world. I don’t think it’s a square deal.”
“A square deal! Why, ’Tana!”
“Isn’t it so?” she asked, moodily. “You think a girl is a pretty hard case if she doesn’t give proper respect and duty to her parents, don’t you? But suppose they are the sort of people no one can respect – what then? Seems to me the first duty is from the parent to the children – the duty of caring for them, loving them, and teaching them right. A child can’t owe a debt of duty when it never received the duties it should have first. Oh, I may not say this clearly as I feel it.”
“But you know, ’Tana,” said Miss Slocum, “that if there is no commandment as to parents giving care to their children, it is only because it is so plainly a natural thing to do that it was unnecessary to command it.”
“No more natural than for a child to honor any person who is honorable, or to love the parent who loves him, and teaches him rightly. Huh! If a child is not able to love and respect a parent, it is the child who loses the most.”
Miss Slocum looked at her sadly.
“I can’t scold you as I would try to scold many a one in your place,” she said, “for I feel as if you must have traveled over some long, hard path of troubles, before you could reach this feeling you have. But, ’Tana, think of brighter things; young girls should never drift into those perplexing questions. They will make you melancholy if you brood on such things.”
“Melancholy? Well, I think not,” and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Seems to me I’m the least gloomy person in camp this morning. All the rest of you look as though Mr. Holly had been your bosom friend.”
She talked recklessly – they thought heartlessly – of the murder, and the two women were strongly inclined to think the shock of the affair had touched her brain, for she showed no concern whatever as to her own position, but treated it as a joke. And when she realized that she was to a certain extent under guard, she seemed to find amusement in that, too. Her expressions, when the cousins grew pitiful over the handsome face of Holly, were touched with ridicule.
“I wonder if there was ever a man too low and vile to get woman’s pity, if he only had a pretty face,” she said, caustically. “If he was an ugly, old, half-decent fellow, you wouldn’t be making any soft-hearted surmises as to what he might have been under different circumstances. He has spoiled the lives of several tenderhearted women like you – yet you pity him!”
“’Tana, I never knew you to be so set against any one as you are against that poor dead man,” declared Mrs. Huzzard. “Not so much wonder the folks think you know how it happened, for you always had a helping word for the worst old tramp or beggarly Indian that came around; but for this man you have nothing but unkindness.”
“No,” agreed the girl, “and you would like to think him a romantic victim of somebody, just because he is so good-looking. I’m going to talk to Harris. He won’t sympathize with the wrong side, I am sure.”
He looked up eagerly as she entered, his eyes full of anxious question. She touched his hand kindly and sat close beside him as she talked.
“You want to know all about it, don’t you?” she asked, softly. “Well, it is all over. He was alive, after all, and I would not believe it. But now you need never trail him again, you can rest now, for he is dead. Somebody else has – has owed him a grudge, too. They think I am the somebody, but you don’t believe that?”
He shook his head decidedly.
“No,” she continued; “though for one moment, Joe, I thought that it might have been you. Yes, I did; for of course I knew it was only weakness would keep you from it, if you were in reach of him. But I remembered at once that it could not be, for the hand that struck him was strong.”
He assented in his silent way, and watched her face closely, as if to read the shadows of thought thrown on it by her feelings.
“It’s awful, ain’t it?” she whispered. “It is what I said I hoped for, and just yet I can’t be sorry – I can’t! But, after this stir is all over, I know it will trouble me, make me sorry because I am not sorry now. I can’t cry, but I do feel like screaming. And see! every once in a while my hands tremble; I tremble all over. Oh, it is awful!”
She buried her face in her hands. Only to him did she show any of the feeling with which the death of the man touched her.
“And you can’t tell me anything of how it was done?” she said, at last. “You so near – did you see any one?”
She longed to ask if he had seen Overton, but dared not utter his name, lest he might suspect as she did. Each hour that went by was an added gain to her for him. Of course he had struck, not knowing who the man was. If he had known, it would have been so easy to say, “I found him robbing the cabin. I killed him,” and there would have been no further question concerning it.
“But if all the other bars were beaten down between us, this one would keep me from ever shaking hands with him again. Why should it have been he out of all the camp? Oh, it makes my heart ache!”
While she sat thus, with miserable thoughts, others came to the door, and looking up, she saw Akkomi, who looked on her with keen, accusing eyes.
“No – it is not true, Akkomi,” she said, in his own jargon. “Keep silent for a little while of the things these people do not know – a little while, and then I can tell you who it is I am shielding, but not yet.”
“Him!” and the eyes of the Indian turned to the paralytic.
“No – not him; truly not,” she said, earnestly. “It is some one you would want to help if you knew – some one who is going fast on the path from these people. They will learn soon it is not I; but till then, keep silence.”
“Dan – where?” he asked, laconically, and her face paled at the question.
Had he any reason to suspect the dread in her own mind? But a moment’s thought reassured her. He had asked simply because Overton seemed always to him the controlling spirit of the camp, and Overton was the one he would have speech with, if any.
“Overton left last night for the lake,” explained Lyster, who had entered and heard the name of Dan and the interrogative tone. Then the blanket was brought to Akkomi – his blanket, in which the man had died.
“I sold it to the white man – that is all,” he answered through ’Tana; and more than that he would not say except to inform them he would wait for Dan. Which was, in fact, the general desire of the committee organized to investigate.
They all appeared to be waiting for Dan. Lyster did not by any means fill his place, simply because Lyster’s interest in ’Tana was too apparent, and there was little of the cool quality of reason in his attitude toward the mysterious case. He did not believe the ring she wore had belonged to Holly, though she refused to tell the source from which it had reached her. He did not believe the man who said he heard that war of words at her cabin in the evening – at least, when others were about, he acted as if he did not believe it. But when he and ’Tana chanced to be alone, she felt the doubt there must be in his mind, and a regret for him touched her. For his sake she was sorry, but not sorry enough to clear the mystery at the expense of that other man she thought she was shielding.
Captain Leek had been dispatched with all speed to the lake works, that Seldon, Haydon, and Overton might be informed of the trouble in camp, and hasten back to settle it. To send for them was the only thing Lyster thought of doing, for he himself felt powerless against the lot of men, who were not harsh or rude in any way, but who simply wanted to know “why” – so many “whys” that he could not answer.
Not less trying to him were the several who persisted in asserting that she had done a commendable thing – that the country ought to feel grateful to her, for the man had made trouble along the Columbia for years. He and his confederates had done ugly work along the border, etc., etc.
“Sorry you asked me, Max?” she said, seeing his face grow gloomy under their cheering (?) assertions.
He did not answer at once, afraid his impatience with her might make itself apparent in his speech.
“No, I’m not sorry,” he said, at last; “but I shall be relieved when the others arrive from the lake. Since you utterly refuse to confide even in me, you render me useless as to serving you; and – well – I can’t feel flattered that you confide in me no more than in the strangers here.”
“I know,” she agreed, with a little sigh, “it is hard on you, and it will be harder still if the story of this should ever creep out of the wilderness to the country where you come from – wouldn’t it?” and she looked at him very sharply, noting the swift color flush his face, as though she had read his thoughts. “Yes – so it’s lucky, Max, that we haven’t talked to others about that little conditional promise, isn’t it? So it will be easier to forget, and no one need know.”
“You mean you think me the sort of fellow to break our engagement just because these fools have mixed you up with this horror?” he asked, angrily. “You’ve no right to think that of me; neither have you the right – in justice to me as well as yourself – to maintain this very suggestive manner about all things connected with the murder. Why can you not tell more clearly where your time was spent last evening? Why will you not tell where the ring came from? Why will you see me half-frantic over the whole miserable affair, when you could, I am sure, easily change it?”
“Oh, Max, I don’t want to worry you – indeed I don’t! But – ” and she smiled mirthlessly. “I told you once I was a ’hoodoo.’ The people who like me are always sure to have trouble brewing for them. That is why I say you had better give me up, Max; for this is only the beginning.”
“Don’t talk like that; it is folly,” he said, in a sharp tone. “‘Hoodoo!’ Nonsense! When Overton and the others arrive, they will find a means of changing the ideas of these people, in spite of your reticence; and then maybe old Akkomi may find words, too. He sits outside the door as impassive as the clay image you gave me and bewitched me with.”
She smiled faintly, thinking of those days – how very long ago they seemed, yet it was this same summer.
“I feel as if I had lived a long time since I played with that clay,” she said, wistfully; “so many things have been made different for me.”
Then she arose and walked about the little room restlessly, while the eyes of Harris never left her. Into the other room she had not gone at all, for in it was the dead stranger.
