Chapter IX THE SPECTRE IN THE FOREST
The letters Durgan resealed had each borne a different handwriting; they had not all come from New York. The sheets could hardly have been covered with invisible ink, having been subjected to both water and fire with no result. These, apparently, were the letters which came to the sisters with marked regularity.
"These ladies are hiding," said Durgan to himself. "This is a device of their New York lawyers to save them from remark." He was unable to associate trickery with the sisters.
In considering Bertha's strong repudiation of future marriage, he began to suppose that she might be already unhappily married and hiding from some villain who held her in legal control. But, in that case, why was she more at ease when riding than at home, and why did she betray fear of some danger close at hand?
With nightfall the rain-cloud sank down, and the moon, floating above in an empty sky, showed clear on the mountain-tops. The rock wall above and below Durgan's camp glistened with silver facets, and the wet forest all about shimmered with reflected light.
But, beautiful as was the shining island of Deer in its close converse with the queen of night, it was not so strange a sight as the upper moon-lit levels of the vast cloud which was floating a hundred feet below.
Durgan went up the trail, passed the vine-hung house, and climbed the highest eminence.
The cloud was composed of perpendicular layers of mist, the upper crests of which rolled in ridge over ridge before the wind—a strong surge of deepest foam. So white was each wave that only in its deep recess was there a touch of shadow. The whiteness was dazzling; the silence absolute.
The adjacent mountain-tops were black islands in mid-ocean.
The silence seemed a terrible thing to the cheated sense of sight. The cloud breakers curled upon the sides of Deer, broke in fragments like windblown froth, curled back, and broke again, as if lashing the rocks and forest trees. Up the deep channel of the valley the waves rolled on with a steady rhythm and fall of surf that should have filled the mountain spaces with its thunder. Across the shining flood, against the black shoulders of opposite shores, the same surf tossed and fell. Yet there was no echo far or near, or murmur; only the hush of a phantom world.
Durgan stood long on a portion of the mountain-top which was covered with short, scrubby oak in young leaf, fascinated by the mighty movement and intense silence.
A rustle came near him amongst the covert. He looked down and stroked the head of one of Bertha's great dogs. He saw the mistress coming: she was cloaked and hooded. It was the hood, perhaps, that hindered her observing him till she was very near.
She uttered a cry of undisguised terror, throwing out her arm, as if to ward off an expected blow.
This movement of defense, so instinctive, told Durgan more than any tale of woe the lips could frame. He was confounded by such evidence of some scene or scenes of past cruelty.
"Now, in the name of Heaven," he cried, "what do you fear? You know that the dogs would allow no mortal to injure you or yours. Is it some murderous spectre of whom you stand in dread?"
She regained a quiet pose, but seemed dazed by the unexpected fright.
"A murderous spectre! What do you mean? Why do you use that phrase, Mr. Durgan?"
"The words are pure nonsense. I used them to show you how baseless your fear appears. But I speak now in earnest to say that you ought not to come out at night alone if you are thus alarmed."
"But I am perfectly safe with the dogs."
"Just so. Then why were you afraid?"
"I—I—in that shawl mistook you for——" She came to a final pause.
He remembered now that, to shield himself from the drenched verdure, he had wrapped a camp blanket around him.
"Yes, I certainly cut a queer figure—like an old wife; but, pardon my insistence, it is not good for any woman to be so terror-stricken as you were just now. That you are safe from danger with the dogs I truly think; but fear itself is injurious. If you are not safe from unruly fears, why roam where you invite them? It is always possible to meet a stranger."
"Oh, I am not afraid of travelers."
"Any shadow may assume a fantastic form."
"But I am really not afraid of odd appearances."
"Then why were you afraid of my blanket?"
But her caution returned. With inconsequence and a touch of reproach she said: "You would rather have the mountain all to yourself, I believe."
"I should be twice desolate. But that has nothing to do with my request that you should keep where you not only are, but feel, safe."
"But if my fears are the result of my own imagination, why should any place be better?"
"You are fencing with me now. If you could tell me what it is you fear——"
She walked by his side as if thinking what she might answer him. "You used a phrase when you just spoke—what put it into your mind?—which perhaps expressed what I fear as literally as words can."
"What do you mean by endorsing such foolish words?"
"Your regard—your friendship, for us, is a very great comfort to us both—the best boon that Providence, if there be a Providence, could have sent us. Yet you have forced me to say what forfeits your regard."
"That would be impossible. Our regard for one another is based solidly upon that touch of good principle which makes the whole world neighbors."
"Ah! I am glad you say that. It is so comfortable to know your benevolence does not depend on our worth. Long ago, and I would have resented such an intimation from anyone; now it gives me the same sort of comfort that a good fire does or, say, a good pudding."
She was regaining her spirits; but there was still a tense ring in her voice which meant intense sincerity.
"Your regard for me has the same basis," said he; and added soon: "I am greatly in earnest in what I say; you ought not to put yourself in the path of fears you cannot master."
"I thank you for the advice. What exactly was it that happened to our letters to-night?"
He ascertained that Adam had given his meagre message discreetly. He could now have comforted her easily with half the truth, but he told all briefly—in whose hands was the keeping of the curious fact of the blank letters, and why he judged it comparatively safe.
Bertha pushed the hood from her head, as if she felt suffocated. She sat down upon a fragment of rock on the verge of the hill, and they both gazed at the silent rolling of the cloud beneath.
"Tricks are folly, and deserve detection," she said at length. "Silence is the only noble form of concealment. Yet our friend, who is a lawyer, told us that if we came here obviously as friendless as we are, rumor would have been cruel. It would have worried our reputation as a dog worries a rat. Every face we met would have been full of suspicion, and—surely it is right to shun morbid conditions?"
Durgan stood uneasy. "People often drop almost all correspondence through indolence," he suggested.
"My sister permitted the trick, I think, simply for my sake. She was distressed by your seals and hearing that the letters had come open. I shall be able to tell her it did not happen at the post-office."
"I should have thought your sister would have trusted her fate in God's hands with perfect resignation."
"Yes, I think she does. She has great faith in God."
After another pause, he said: "You were so good as to ask me the other day for advice; will you take an old man's advice now and go home to bed? All things appear more reasonable by daylight, and the more you tire yourself, the more you are likely to see the circumstances of life in distorted shape."
She answered with an anger that leaped beyond her more tardy self-control. "You know no more than my dogs do what I can and cannot do, what it is drives me here to-night, or what it is that I fear."
"I beg your pardon."
Penitent in a moment, she said: "You are truly kind, Mr. Durgan. I am so glad that we have a neighbor, and that he should be what you are."
"I wish, since you are in misery, that he could have been one in whom you could confide, who could perhaps help."
She stood wrapping her cloak closer about her. "Let me be petulant when I want to be petulant, mysterious when I must, tragic when I must, gay when I can. Let my moods pass you as the winds pass. If you can do this and preserve a secret, you will do more than any other human being could or would." She waited a moment, and added: "I have trusted you from the first to do this; I do not know why."