"I saw him do it," she replied; realizing that, having gone so far, she must answer.
"Why did he strike him?" persisted Appleton.
"You might ask him that," she said and, with a defiant toss of her head, quitted the room and closed the door behind her.
The Sheridans had been taken into confidence, and when the four found themselves alone they smiled knowingly.
As the days slipped into the second week of their stay, the carcasses of many deer hung from poles in the clearing, and the outside walls of the log building were adorned with the skins of numerous wolves and bobcats.
Hardly a day passed but some one, by word or look, or covert sneer, expressed disapproval of the boss; and Ethel, entirely ignorant of the fact that these expressions of disapproval were made only in her presence, and for her special benefit, was conscious of a feeling of great pity for the lonely man.
The indescribable restlessness of a great longing took possession of her; she found herself, time and again, watching from the window, and from places of concealment behind the trunks of trees, while the big foreman went stolidly about his work.
The fact that she should hate Bill Carmody was logical and proper; but she bitterly resented the distrust and criticism of the others. She wished now with all her heart that she had not confided in her aunt, and a dozen times she caught herself on the point of rushing to his defense.
Not since that morning on the skidway had the two met. Bill deviated not one whit from the regular routine of his duties, and the girl purposely avoided him.
She hated him. Over and over again she told herself that she hated and despised him, and yet, on two or three occasions when she knew he had gone to the farthest reaches of the cutting, she had slipped unobserved into the office and read from his books—not the uncut novels—but the well-thumbed copies of Browning and Southey; and as she read she pondered.