“We made it in before midnight, anyhow,” he said carelessly.
Elinor looked up in surprise. The terrors of the night still possessed her.
“What a horrible nightmare it has all been. The storm, the river, the rocks, and the darkness, and that dreadful something behind us in the cave. Was there really anything, or did we just imagine it all? It will seem impossible when the daylight comes.”
Victor looked at her with a wonderful light in his wide-open brown eyes.
“Yes,” he said in a deep voice. “It will seem impossible when daylight comes. But will it all be as a horrible nightmare?”
“No, no; not all.” Elinor's face was winsomely sweet. “Not all,” she repeated. “It is fine to feel one's self so safeguarded as I have been. I shall always remember you as one with whom I could never again be afraid.”
Burleigh turned hastily toward the door, and, having delivered her to the care of her uncle, he bade them both good night.
Dr. Fenneben looked keenly after the young man striding away from the light. His clothes were torn and bedraggled, his cap was gone, and his heavy hair was a mass of rough waves about his forehead. The direct gaze of his golden-brown eyes took away distrust, and yet the face had changed somehow in this day. A hint of a new purpose had crept into it, a purpose not possible for Dr. Fenneben to read.
But he did note the set of the head, the erect form and broad shoulders, and the easy swinging step as the boy went whistling away into the shadows of the night.
“A splendid animal, anyhow,” the Dean thought. “Will the soul measure up to that princely body? And what can be the purport of this maudlin mouthing of old Bond Saxon? Bond is really a lovable man when he's sober; but he's vindictive and ugly when he's drunk. I can wait for developments. Whatever the boy's history may have been, like the courts, it's my business to hold every man innocent till he's proven guilty; to build up character, not to undermine and destroy it. And destruction begins in suspicion.”