The men went, Darrin a little in the lead, down the hill toward the spring.
XVI
THE day was cold and damp and chill, with a promise of snow in the air; one of those ugly October days when coming winter seems to sulk upon the northern hills, awaiting summer’s tardy going. Clouds obscured the sky, though now and then during the morning the sun had broken through, laying a patch of light upon the earth and bringing out the nearer hills in bold relief against those that were farthest off. The wind was northeasterly, always a storm sign hereabouts. There was haste in it, and haste in the air, and haste in all the wild things that were abroad. The crows overhead flew swiftly, tumbling headlong in the racking air currents. A flock of geese passed once, high in the murk, their honking drifting faintly down to earth. The few ground birds darted from cover to cover; the late-pasturing cows had gone early to the barn. Night was coming early; an ominous blackness seemed about to shut down upon the world. The very air held threats and whispers of harm.
Evered and Darrin walked in silence down along the old wood road, through a birch clump, past some dwarfed oaks, and out into the open on the shelf above the spring.
Halfway across this shelf Darrin said “I’ve got some questions to ask you, Evered.”
Evered did not answer. Darrin had not stopped and Evered kept pace with him.
The younger man said, “This was the way you came that day your wife was killed, wasn’t it?”
Evered turned his head as though to speak, hesitated. Darrin stopped and caught his eye.
“Look here,” he demanded. “You’ve nothing to hide in that business, have you?”
“No,” said Evered mildly. He wondered why he answered the other at all; yet there was something in the younger man’s bearing which he did not care to meet, something dominant and commanding, as though Darrin had a right to ask, and knew that he had this right. “No,” said Evered; “nothing to hide.”