In the deep obscurity of those dark hours before the moonrise, in the effacement of all the visible expressions of material nature, save the glitter of the stars and the glooming of the shadows, Felix Guthrie had been alone, as it were, with his own soul. He had never known, native of the wilderness though he was, so intense a sense of solitude. It was as if his spirit had gone forth from the familiar world into the vast voids of the uncreate. He took no heed of the dangerous way down the steeps, but gave the horse the rein, and trusted to the keener nocturnal sight of the animal. His dog ran on ahead pioneer-wise, retracing his way from time to time and gambolling about his master's stirrup irons, his presence only made known by a vague panting which Guthrie neither heard nor heeded. Even to the voice of the mountain torrent he was oblivious, although it seemed louder far by night than by day, assertive, unafraid, congener of the solitude, the darkness, and the melancholy isolations of the mountain woods. The rhododendron blooming all unseen by the way touched his cheek with a soft petal and a freshness of dew; now and again a brier clutched at his sleeve; sometimes a stone rolled beneath his horse's hoofs, and fell into the abyss at the side of the road, sonorously echoing and echoing as it smote upon the rocky walls of the chasm, the decisive final thud so long delayed that to judge thus of the unseen depths which lurked at either hand might have daunted him had he listened. The horse would hesitate at times, and send forth a whinnying plaint of doubt or fear when the rushing torrent crossed the way, plunging in presently, however, and, if need were, swimming gallantly, with the swimming dog in his wake.
Guthrie's thoughts made all the way heavy; deeper than the glooms of the night they shadowed his spirit.
"Though she may sing an' he may listen, I ain't a-goin' ter spy him out fur no sher'ff ez ever rid with spurs. I ain't a-goin' ter hound him an' track him, fur I ain't no dog; though I ain't got nuthin' agin dogs, nuther. But"—with a hardening of the face—"I'll hold him ter account ter me. I'll bring him ter jedgment. He'll 'low the law o' the lan' hev got a toler'ble feeble grip compared with the way I'll take holt o' him. He war warned. I told him ez I hed it in my heart ter kill the man ez kem atwixt Litt an' me."
When he reached the levels of the cove the springy turf served to add speed to the smooth, swinging, steady pace. He had hardly expected so soon to see before him the steep gables of the old Rhodes homestead. These were cut sharply against the sky, for the house stood in the midst of its open fields. One or two sycamore-trees swayed above its roof, and great overgrown bushes—lilac and snowball and roses—crowded the yard. A garden, overgrown too, extended down the slope at the side, and here as well were masses of shrubs blackly visible in contrast with the open spaces.
Guthrie was a stranger here. He had never before seen so great a house as the rambling old brick dwelling. When he had dismounted at the fence he was for a moment at a loss how to enter. A porch was at the front and another at the side, and while he hesitated a vague glimmer of yellow light came through the masses of the foliage that clustered about one of the windows. He opened the gate; his foot fell noiselessly upon the weed-grown path. A great white lily was waving in the gloom close by—he saw it glimmer—another, and another; and as the file stood close in the border, the heavy rich perfume seemed to make the air dense. The window glared forth suddenly—the light in every tiny pane—when he had passed a great arbor-vitæ that stood near it, trailing its branches on the ground. Within, unconscious, at ease, unprescient, a man sat by a lamp, a book in his hand, his chair tilted back, a pipe between his teeth. Save the light, vaporous curling of the smoke above his head, there was no motion. The fire dwindled in the chimney-place; the clock had stopped as if it fell a-drowsing on the midnight hour. The wind had ceased even its vague stir, and the vines that hung about the window were still. Guthrie stood for a moment as if the inertia of the scene had fallen upon him, staring at the face that he had learned to know rather in meditating upon it in its absence than in the study of its traits. It was softer than he had thought, younger; but he recognized anew, with an infinite change of sentiment, that indefinable quality of expression, to which glance, contour, pose, all contributed, which made it so likable. And if this had been patent to him, why not to others—to Letitia? A new standpoint had wrought a radical difference. The vague fascination that had once commended Shattuck kindled Guthrie's hatred now. His eyes glowed like a panther's from out of the darkness, and when Shattuck abruptly put up his hand with the quick, decisive motion of keen interest and turned a page of the volume, it broke the lethargic spell that seemed to have fallen upon the mountaineer. Guthrie moved up suddenly close to the window, his very touch upon the pane. There was an imperious look upon his face. It seemed to hail the unconscious reader within, who with his quick deft gesture presently turned another leaf. Guthrie could see his intent eyes, full of light, shifting from side to side of the page as they scanned the lines. He made no effort to attract Shattuck's attention beyond that long steady, glowering look, albeit he wondered that its effect should be so belated. He had noted often that strange mesmeric influence of the eye; a wild beast in the woods would not remain oblivious of the presence of his natural enemy were a human being's gaze steadily fixed for some space upon him. Shattuck suddenly put up his hand with a vaguely impatient air of interruption, and passed it over his cheek; then he rose abruptly to his feet, crossed the hearth with his quick, sure step, and reached up to the high mantel-piece, dusky in the shadow. There was a sharp metallic click outside amongst the honeysuckle vines—Guthrie had cocked his pistol.
But it was no weapon which Shattuck had grasped from the mantel-piece. His train of thought was evidently still unbroken, for he came slowly back into the circumference of the light of the lamp, as it stood on the table, turning in his careful deft hands a curiously decorated jar. Then, still standing, with the other hand he whirled over the leaves of the book, and seemed to compare the jar which he held to an engraving upon the page. That serene light of a purely intellectual pleasure was upon his face, and its peculiar charm, its alertness, its mobility, its sympathetic intimations, its clear candor, its courage, had never been more individual, more marked. The man outside, with his pistol cocked in his hand, keenly alive to all impressions that mutually concerned them, sought to see him as once he had seemed. Jealousy had tampered with Guthrie's vision, and he could no longer read these patent characters; they were like a language that one has half forgotten—a vague suggestion here and there, a broken association, a dull misconception. The next moment their eyes met.
For one instant the sudden sight of that white cheek pressed close to the glass drove the blood from Shattuck's face. He stood, the jar still in his hand, his head bent down, his questioning, searching eye intent. Then, still without recognizing the features of the man outside, he placed the jar on the table, and walked slowly to the window, unarmed as he was. He laid both hands on the sash to lift it; it was thrown creakingly up, and the light fell full on the face without, its square contour, its austere, sullen expression, its long yellow ringlets, all framed by the big brim of the broad hat thrust far back.
"Is that you, Fee?" Shattuck said, in surprise. "You nearly scared me to death. Why don't you come in?"
His tone was untroubled and casual. It implied a conscience void of offence.
"He thinks I hain't fund him out," Guthrie commented to himself. Aloud he replied, grimly: "'Tain't wuth while ter kem in. I kin say what I hev got ter say right hyar."