And to stay here made matters worse. To linger on in the home of the man whom, perhaps, he was to kill; to listen to the ingenuous, happy voice of the daughter; to grow to see how wonderful a thing Nature had built of this child of the wildwood; to feel that day by day they were being drawn closer together, that they were crossing a frontier which in a little they could not retrace——
“If her father is the man who did it, have I the right to take her father from her?” he muttered. And again, “Has the man who killed Johnny Watson a right to live?”
So those five days were short days, fleeing so swiftly for man and maid, filled with sunshine and the girl’s soft laughter and the vague promise of life. And the nights were long nights for the man; crowded with ugly images, torn with doubts, beset with threats of the future, thronged with questions to which he could find no answer. Now there was nothing to do but to wait.
But there was no waiting, no staying, into the path into which their feet were wandering, Dick Farley’s and Virginia Dalton’s. It was the old, old story of a man and a maid. And with the first great throb of understanding in the man’s heart there came, too, a contraction and a pain, and he tore himself abruptly from the girl’s presence and went to stand frowning toward the mountains into which Dalton had gone. And her eyes, following him, were filled with a tender light which was new to them, her lips parted in a half-smile, her breast rising and falling rapidly. For into her heart, too, had come the throb, but not the pain of the knowledge he had.
It was the sixth day. They had been together so much; had talked of self and of the other so frankly; had been so lost to the world and drawn close to each other in the solitude of the still mountains; had come to find a new peace and contentment as they were silent together watching the coming of the dawn, the passing of the day, the slow voyages of the moon through clouds and stars; had been so all-sufficient each to each that the short five days seemed like long, bursting years when they looked back upon them. It was only natural that the thing which was happening with them should happen.
Now, upon the morning of the sixth day, the day which was to bring Dalton home, their talk had died down suddenly. Farley had fallen into an abrupt silence, his eyes refusing to come back to hers. And in a little the girl’s mood followed his, and with a faint trouble in her eyes she moved about the cabin, as silent as he. The forenoon passed; they lunched, with now and then a fitful burst of conversation which ended wretchedly, forced and unnatural, and the afternoon wore on. It was nearly dusk when James Dalton came home.
He was a very big man, tall, heavy, broad of shoulder, and very dark; with sharp black eyes under bushy brows, black hair and beard shot with gray. He came upon them from the lake, walking swiftly, his rifle caught up under his arm. The girl was sitting upon the doorstep, Farley upon a rock a few feet away. Dalton’s eyes went quickly from the young man to his daughter, very keen, with a glint of surprise in them.
“Daddy!” the girl cried, running to meet him, throwing her two arms about his neck. “So you have finally got tired of roving and have come back, have you?”
He ran an arm about her, and then, with no reply to her bantering, demanded quietly—
“Who is that?”