"Nothing. You may go now."
Without another word he left her. He was not surprised by her failure to mention the early morning episode at Striker's cabin. His concluding question had opened the way; it was clear that she had no intention of discussing with him the personal affairs of her daughter. Nevertheless he was decidedly irritated. What right had she to ask him to accept Viola as a sister unless she was also willing to grant him the privileges and interests of a brother? Certainly if Viola was to be his sister he ought to have something to say about the way she conducted herself,—for the honour of the family if for no other reason.
As he walked rapidly away from the house in the direction of Main Street, he experienced a sudden sense of exaltation. Viola was not his sister! As suddenly came the reaction, and with it stark realization. Viola could never be anything to him except a sister.
CHAPTER IX — BROTHER AND SISTER
As he turned into Main Street he espied the figure of a woman coming toward him from the direction of the public Square. She was perhaps a hundred yards farther down the street and was picking her way gingerly, mincingly, along the narrow path at the roadside. His mind was so fully occupied with thoughts of a most disturbing character that he paid no attention to her, except to note that she was dressed in black and that in holding her voluminous skirt well off the ground to avoid the mud-puddles, she revealed the bottom of a white, beruffled petticoat.
His meditations were interrupted and his interest suddenly aroused when he observed that she had stopped stock-still in the path. After a moment, she turned and walked rapidly, with scant regard for the puddles, in the direction from which she had come. Fifteen or twenty paces down the road, she came to what was undoubtedly a path or "short cut" through the wood. Into this she turned hastily and was lost to view among the trees and hazel-brush.
He had recognized her,—or rather he had divined who she was. He quickened his pace, bent upon overtaking her. Then, with the thrill of the hunter, he abruptly whirled and retraced his steps. With the backwoodsman's cunning he hastened over the ground he had already traversed, chuckling in anticipation of her surprise when she found him waiting for her at the other end of the "short cut."
He had noticed a path opening into the woods at a point almost opposite his own house, and naturally assumed that it was the one she was now pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His long legs carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted himself. He could hear her coming through the brush, although her figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the swish of branches as she thrust them aside.