But all the while, as time passed, more and more, on her walks and in her own house at night, she was becoming haunted with that feeling of being watched and followed. She spoke of it to no one. Grace alone, her most constant companion, might have offered some explanation; but Joe Tobet's trial was approaching, and Grace was in no condition to be needlessly alarmed. Mother Cary was showing herself increasingly anxious about Ogilvie; and the teething grandchild kept her away from home much of the time. So Rosamund confided in no one; but especially whenever she was out alone, or towards twilight, she was possessed by the sense of a shadowy something watching, following, haunting her. It amounted to an obsession, a fear that was all the more terrifying because it could not be faced. She tried to persuade herself that it was a trick of overwrought nerves, a wild phantasy of the imagination; and the better to convince herself of that she laid little traps—sprinkling fresh snow over the path to the house, for one thing, only to find a man's footprints on it in the morning.
When the time came that she would wake in the night in horror, from a dream of something unseen creeping upon her out of the dark, she knew that she must somehow find and face the elusive presence, whatever it might be, or become utterly unnerved. Moved by the impulse of a frightened creature at bay, she had tried to do so before, but in vain; now, however, in her determination she laid a plan which was more likely to succeed.
There were two ways from the brown house to the post-office; by the road it was a countryman's long mile, and until the leaves fell she had not discovered that there was a shorter way by one of the hidden paths worn by the mountaineers. This little path ran along beside the highway at times, though higher up on the mountain-side, so that anyone walking upon it could look down, unseen, on the road; now and again it cut across turns, through woods, often with sharp turnings to avoid some bowlder or fallen tree.
Although at the thought of it her heart beat with something more closely related to fear than she cared to admit, Rosamund determined to take the little frozen path, and when she felt the presence lurking back of her to turn, at one of the points where the path bent aside, and, her movements hidden by the nature of the path, to retrace her steps and face whatever was following her.
At first she thought the Thing must in some ghostly way have divined her purpose; all the way to the Summit she knew that she was unfollowed. But on the way back, scarcely had she turned into the path when her heart gave a leap. There was the sound, so detestably familiar of late, of a stealthy footstep, which stopped when hers did, and which came on, quietly, relentlessly, when she started forward again. Nerving herself to courage, she walked quickly on until she came to a place where the path turned sharply; there for a moment or two she paused, to let the pursuer gain upon her, then quietly and quickly retraced her steps.
The ruse was successful. She could hear the footsteps come on, the man plainly unaware of her returning. Suddenly she stepped a little out of the path and waited. The man came nearer, was opposite her—and with a cry, her hand on her heart, she faced—John Ogilvie.
For a long minute they stared at each other. She could scarcely believe the evidence of her eyes, yet it was surely Ogilvie. "Is it you who have been following me?" she gasped.
His shoulders drooped as guiltily as a schoolboy's caught in mischief; he looked at her dumbly, wistfully.
"I—it—Yes!" he stammered.
For a moment she could not speak, so amazed was she. When she did, he flushed deeply at the scorn in her voice, but at once grew pale again.