He stood aside and let her pass.
“Will you forgive?” he asked.
“Will you be strong?”
He shivered, but his moving lips gave out no sound.
When the moon trailed down below the tree-fringe of the Point he was still standing where the girl had left him. The panther’s howl was still, but away down in the mucky marshlands the loon sent his weird cry to the cold stars.
CHAPTER XIV
Paisley Reconnoiters
The early autumn twilight had fallen when Bill Paisley stepped from the wood into the fallow. He dropped the long muzzle-loading rifle into the hollow of his arm and peered down through the gathering dusk toward Totherside.
“Why, there sure is a light at widder Ross’s,” soliloquized the man. “Now, it might be that I’d find out some things we should know if I’d just drop over there casual-like. What I’ve heard concernin’ Watson, and Peeler seein’ him and the teacher on the trail together, has roused my suspicions to the boilin’ point. I hope he’s at the widder’s to-night; I want to ‘get to know him better,’ as Boy put it.”
Paisley leaned against a tree and laughed silently.
“He don’t like me very much. I could see that the other night. And I suppose it’s natural that I shouldn’t think much of him.”