XXV
CHEYNE RELIEVES HIS FEELINGS
A blustering wind moaned outside the lonely building, and the stove snapped and crackled as the chilly draughts swept into the hall at Cedar Range. Jackson Cheyne had arrived on horseback in the creeping dusk an hour or two earlier, after spending most of four nights and days in the slushy snow, and was now resting contentedly in a big hide chair. Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that Hetty sat close by, he was feeling pleasantly drowsy when she turned to him.
“You have only told us that you didn’t find the train-wreckers, and you know we are just dying with curiosity,” she said.
Cheyne looked up languidly, wondering whether the half-indifferent inquisitiveness was assumed, as he remembered the anxiety he had seen in Hetty’s face when he first came in. Instead of answering directly, he glanced round the little group sitting about the stove—for Miss Schuyler, and Christopher Allonby and his cousin were there, as well as Hetty.
“One would scarcely fancy you were dying of anything,” he said. “In fact, it would be difficult to imagine any of you looking better. I wonder if you know that with the way that the light falls that dusky panelling forms a most effective background, Miss Schuyler?”
Flora Schuyler laughed. “We are not to be put off. Tell us what you found—and you needn’t have any diffidence: we are quite accustomed to hearing the most astonishing things at Cedar.”
“The trouble is that I didn’t find anything. I spent several most unpleasant hours watching a railroad-trestle in blinding snow, until the cattle-train went by in safety. Nobody seemed to have the slightest wish to meddle with it.”
Without exactly intending it he allowed his eyes to rest on Hetty a moment, and fancied he saw relief in her face. But it was Flora Schuyler who turned to him.