He had showed, from the first, a curious indifference to his surroundings. They had not come by the way of Bridgewater, but had left the train at a small station farther up the road and driven across country eight or ten miles, by night, to the Bardwell farm and the little house on the creek. To Simeon, in the long empty days that followed his arrival, the place had no existence. He hardly knew more than that he ate and slept and that John was always at hand—to turn his pillow or speak to him or replace the light coverlet when it slipped off.
And as strength came to him and they walked every day a little distance from the house, his indifference to the outer world persisted. He asked no questions. His mind followed no roads. Sometimes on misty nights, when the long, slow whistle sounded across the low hills, John would watch him curiously. But the head was not lifted from the brooding hand by the fire. The road had slipped out of memory, perhaps—or grown dim in the visions that haunted his gaze. If he knew where John went, on the days when he was absent, he made no reference to it.
Only when the child came, his mind reached out. It reached out to a little path that lost itself in the underbrush and rustling oak leaves. He would stand for hours, looking at it wistfully when she did not come. But he never set foot in the path. It was hers and she came and went as she pleased.
With a kind of canny Scotch wisdom, the child had refrained from speaking at home of her visits. She may have been uneasily afraid that they would be forbidden if discovered, and she concealed them carefully, not only from her grandparents, but from her little brother who was her only companion. It was not always easy to evade him and, then, there were days when she did not come. But she guarded Simeon’s secret jealously, as if he were some helpless thing she had come upon unawares in her trudgings up and down the farm. And from the day she first strayed into the half-defined path that John’s feet had worn between the house and the farm, she did not cease to haunt it.
XXIV
WHAT are you doing?” She was standing on tiptoe, her eyes barely over the edge of the table, watching Simeon’s pencil as it moved over the paper.
The pencil continued its curious tracks. Simeon’s eyes were fixed on it intently. There was no reply.
She watched it a few minutes in silence. She and Simeon were good friends. They did not mind the silence, but he would answer—if he heard—“What are you doing?” It was very quiet—but firm—in the clear, high voice.