From here one could get a glimpse of the first and second floor piazzas and the windows opening upon them. He could not tell which was the window of Phyl’s room, it was enough for him that the place held her.
In the way in which he had crossed the road, in his uneasy prowling up and down before the house, and now in his attitude as he stood motionless with head raised there was something ominous, animal-like, almost wolfish.
As he stood a call suddenly came from the garden. It was the call of an owl, a white owl that rose on the sound and flitted softly as a moth across the trees to the garden beyond.
Silas turned away from the gate and came back down the street towards his hotel, arrived there he went straight to his room and to bed.
But he did not go to sleep. His head was full of plans, the craziest and maddest plans. Pinckney he had quite dismissed from his mind, the consciousness of having committed a vile action in drawing a knife upon an unarmed man was with him, and the knowledge that the consequences might include his expulsion from Charleston society, but all that instead of sobering him made him more reckless. He would have Phyl despite the Devil himself. He would seize her and carry her off, trap her like a bird.
He determined on the morrow to return early to Grangersons and think things out.
CHAPTER II
Whilst he was lying in bed thinking things out, the folk at Vernons were retiring to rest.