The silent query was soon answered—it fell, dropped lightly down on the man's shoulder, and he, raising his head from the folded arms, showed a face from which the girl took a step back in astonishment. He had not been asleep, then; but to the girl's eyes he looked like a man who had been either fighting or weeping. She had never seen a face so changed, telling so surely of some war of the emotions. He lay in the shadow, one hand involuntarily lifting itself as a shade for his eyes while he looked up at her.
"Well!" The tone was gruff, almost hoarse; it was as unlike him as his face at that moment, and Rachel Hardy wondered, blankly, if he was drunk—it was about the only reasonable explanation she could give herself. But even with that she could not be satisfied; there was too much quick anger at the thought—not anger alone, but a decided feeling of disappointment in the man. To be sure, she had been influenced by no one to have faith in him; still—someway—
"Are you—are you ill, Mr. Genesee?" she asked at last.
"Not that I know of."
What a bear the man was! she thought; what need was there to answer a civil question in that tone. It made her just antagonistic enough not to care so much if his feelings had been hurt by Clara's remarks, and she asked bluntly:
"Have you been here long?"
"Some time."
"Awake?"
"Well, yes," and he made a queer sound in his throat, half grunt, half laugh; "I reckon I—was—awake."
The slow, half-bitter words impelled her to continue: