"Good boy." She mocked him again from the ladder as she went down.
Peter waited with clenched hands till the trembling of the ladder had ceased. Then he looked into the yard. She had not yet disappeared. A young farmer had ridden into the drive, and was talking to her from his horse. She seemed to be deprecating his anger. They paused in their talk as Peter drew near them. The man was good-looking, with honest eyes. But he looked at Peter with angry suspicion, carefully searching his face, as though he desired to remember him if they should meet again.
That afternoon Peter left the farm and walked into the country. Thunder echoed among the hills, seeming the voice of his trouble. He was humiliated by the lure of a woman he disliked and feared. He vehemently told himself that he would break away. But he continually felt the strong tug of her sex. He shook under the pressure of her mouth, his neck yet bitten with that strange caress. He shunned the memory, yet returned to it, thrilling with an excitement, sweet even as it stung him.
The thunder waited among the hills all that day. As the evening wore, and Peter, back at the farm, watched the summer lightning come and go, it seemed as though batteries were closing in from all points of the heaven. But the sky was still open to the stars, and there was no rain.
Peter stood with the farmer by the garden gate. He told Peter that the little hill where they united was mysteriously immune, in a tempest, from the water which deluged the valley.
As Peter, with his thoughts full of the farmer's granddaughter, listened to the farmer's tale of a dry storm which, with never a spot of rain, had fired the stack in the yard, it seemed as though, now and then, he could hear her low singing. It floated on the heavy air. Peter could scarcely tell whether it were really her voice or an echo in his tired brain. He strained his ears, between the pauses of the farmer's talk. The low note swelled and died.
The farmer moved into the house, and Peter could more connectedly listen. Now he heard it clearly, a faint persistent singing, implacably fascinating. To find that voice was above all things to be desired.
Peter listened, faint at heart with a struggle which suddenly seemed foolish. Pleasure caught at him. He saw her beautiful, as when she slept, the low notes of her voice breathed from lips that were neither mocking nor cruel. Her hands again crept upon his throat, and he did not draw away. He needed them.
Where should he find her? Peter went like a young animal, tracking through the dark. He paused, quietly alert; as he discovered that her murmuring came from the loft where he had found her sleeping. He climbed the ladder, and stepped into the darkness. The singing stopped, and he stood still while his eyes measured the place. At last he saw her almost at his feet. He dropped beside her without a word. She did not stir, but said as softly as though she feared to frighten him away:
"So you have come to me?"