Beth was primitive, highly honorable by instinct if not by precept, but a creature of impulse, very much in love, who read by intuition the intrusion of what seemed a very real danger to her happiness. If her conscience warned her that she was transgressing the rules of polite procedure, something stronger than a sense of propriety urged her on to read, something stronger than mere curiosity—the impulse of self-preservation, the impulse to preserve that which was stronger even than self—the love of Peter Nichols.
The scrawl that she had written upon the envelope was eloquent of her point of view, at once a taunt, a renunciation and a confession. "You left this last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie!"
It was the intention of carrying the letter to Peter's cabin and there leaving it in a conspicuous position that now led her rapidly down the path through the woods. Gone were the tender memories of the night before. If this woman had had claims upon Peter Nichols's heart at the two places with the Russian names, she had the same claims upon them now. Beth's love and her pride waged a battle within her as she approached the Cabin. She remembered that Peter had told her last night that he would have a long day at the lumber camp, but as she crossed the log-jam she found herself hoping that by some chance she would find Peter still at home, where, with a fine dignity (which she mentally rehearsed) she would demand explanation, and listening, grant forgiveness. Or else ... she didn't like to think of the alternative.
But instead of Peter, at the Cabin door in the early morning sunlight she found a strange man, sitting in a chair in the portico, smoking one of Peter's cigarettes, and apparently much at home. The appearance of the stranger was for a moment disconcerting, but Beth approached the familiar doorway, her head high, the heliotrope letter burning her fingers. She had intended to walk in at the door of the Cabin, place the letter in a conspicuous position where Peter could not fail to see it, and then return to her home and haughtily await Peter's arrival. But the presence of this man, a stranger in Black Rock, making free of Peter's habitation, evidently with Peter's knowledge and consent, made her pause in a moment of uncertainty.
At her approach the man in the chair had risen and she saw that he was tall—almost as tall as Peter, that he had a hooked nose and displayed a set of irregular teeth when he smiled—which he did, not unpleasantly. There was something about him which repelled her yet fascinated at the same time.
"Mr. Nichols has gone out?" Beth asked, for something to say.
"Yes, Miss," said the stranger, blinking at her with his bleary eyes. "Mr. Nichols is down at the lumber camp—won't be back until night, I reckon. Anythin' I can do for ye?"
"No, I——?" Beth hesitated. "I just wanted to see him—to leave somethin' for him."
"I guess he'll be right sorry to miss you. Who shall I say called?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Beth, turning away. But she was now aware of a strange curiosity as to this person who sat with such an air of well-being in Peter's chair and spoke with such an air of proprietorship. The insistence of her own personal affair with Peter had driven from her mind all thoughts of the other matters suggested in the letter, of the possible dangers to Peter even here in Black Rock and the mysterious references to Holy Russia. This man who stood in Peter's portico, whoever he was, was not a Russian, she could see that at a glance and read it in his accents, but she was equally certain from his general character that he could be no friend of Peter's and that his business here was not of Peter's choosing.