“There’s something here—that was left,” she panted. “Folks have forgotten all about—” She dropped explanatory phrases.
Heedless of tearing thorns and piercing prickers, Lindsay crashed on. Mrs. Spash watched expectantly.
“There!” she called with satisfaction.
On a cairn of rocks, filmed over by years of exposure to the weather, stood what Lindsay immediately recognized to be a large old rum-jar. The sun found exposed spots on its surface, brought out its rich olive color.
“After Mr. Lewis died,” Mrs. Spash explained, “Miss Murray went abroad for a year. She went to Egypt. She put this here when she came home. Then you could see it from the house. The sun shone on it something handsome. She told me once she went into a temple on the Nile cut out of the living-rock, where there was room after room, one right back of the other. In the last one, there was an altar; and once a year, the first ray of the rising sun would strike through all the rooms and lay on that altar. Worn’t that cute? I allus thought she had that in mind when she put this here.”
Lindsay contemplated the old rum-jar. Mrs. Spash contemplated him. And suddenly it was as though she were looking at Lindsay from a new point of view.
Lindsay’s face had changed subtly in the last two months. The sun of Quinanog had added but little to the tan and burn with which three years of flying had crusted it. He was still very handsome. It was not, however, this comeliness that Mrs. Spash seemed to be examining. The experiences at Quinanog had softened the deliberate stoicism of his look. Rather they had fed some inner softness; had fired it. His air was now one of perpetual question. Yet dreams often invaded his eyes; blurred them; drooped his lips.
“It’s all unbelievable,” Lindsay suddenly commented, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe myself.”
Mrs. Spash still kept her eyes fixed on the young man’s face. Her look had grown piercing.