XVI.
STORM.
Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heav'n:
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't!—Hamlet.
A DAY had passed. Mr. Byrd, who no longer had any reason to doubt that he was upon the trail of the real assailant of the Widow Clemmens, had resolved upon a third visit to the woods, this time with the definite object of picking up any clew, however trifling, in support of the fact that Craik Mansell had passed through the glade behind his aunt's house.
The sky, when he left the hotel, was one vast field of blue; but by the time he reached the terminus of the car-route, and stepped out upon the road leading to the woods, dark clouds had overcast the sun, and a cool wind replaced the quiet zephyrs which had all day fanned the brilliant autumn foliage.
He did not realize the condition of the atmosphere, however, and proceeded on his way, thinking more of the person he had just perceived issuing from the door-way of Professor Darling's lofty mansion, than of the low mutterings of distant thunder that now and then disturbed the silence of the woods, or of the ominous, brazen tint which was slowly settling over the huge bank of cloud that filled the northern sky. For that person was Miss Dare, and her presence here, or anywhere near him, at this time, must of necessity, awaken a most painful train of thought.
But, though unmindful of the storm, he was dimly conscious of the darkness that was settling about him. Quicker and quicker grew his pace, and at last he almost broke into a run as the heavy pall of a large black cloud swept up over the zenith, and wiped from the heavens the last remnant of blue sky. One drop fell, then another, then a slow, heavy patter, that bent double the leaves they fell upon, as if a shower of lead had descended upon the heavily writhing forest. The wind had risen, too, and the vast aisles of that clear and beautiful wood thundered with the swaying of boughs, and the crash here and there of an old and falling limb. But the lightning delayed.
The blindest or most abstracted man could be ignorant no longer of what all this turmoil meant. Stopping in the path along which he had been speeding, Mr. Byrd glanced before him and behind, in a momentary calculation of distances, and deciding he could not regain the terminus before the storm burst, pushed on toward the hut.
He reached it just as the first flash of lightning darted down through the heavy darkness, and was about to fling himself against the door, when something—was it the touch of an invisible hand, or the crash of awful thunder which at this instant plowed up the silence of the forest and woke a pandemonium of echoes about his head?—stopped him.
He never knew. He only realized that he shuddered and drew back, with a feeling of great disinclination to enter the low building before him, alone; and that presently taking advantage of another loud crash of falling boughs, he crept around the corner of the hut, and satisfied his doubts by looking into the small, square window opening to the west.