He waited until he had seen her leave the house with the ill-omened flowers in her hand, then he launched his canoe on the smooth, dark waters of the Arm, and went through the blackness and softness of the August night to the tiny cove that he had visited with Vivienne and Armour through the day.
Upon arriving there he drew his canoe from the water, put his cap under his arm, dropped on the ground, and took out his beads. Over and over his prayers he went—it was not terrifying to pray with the grass under his knees and the stars overhead, but when it came to entering the spirit-haunted wood his heart misgave him. Yet he persevered, hobbling over the ground till he was under the trees and among the ferns, and finally beside the gaping rent in the leaf mould left by the abstraction of the ghost flower.
Shuddering in every limb, and beseeching the Virgin, the Saints, and the Great Spirit not to avenge the theft, he detached the cross from his rosary and dropped it into the hole as an offering to the offended spirit of the plant. Then springing to his feet he ran from out the dreadful shadows, leaped into his canoe, and paddled quickly and in a relieved manner, not to his camp among the spruces, but back to Pinewood where he purposed remaining till Vivienne’s return home should convince him that he had been successful in his effort to propitiate the spirits on her behalf.
He stationed himself among the pines in front of the house, occasionally leaving them to investigate the origin of sounds in other directions, but always coming back and waiting with the patience of a trained hunter.
Quite early in the evening two of the maids came home exchanging with accompanying admirers various confidences that he was privileged to hear. Subsequently the admirers went home, and the maids went to bed. He saw the lights extinguished in their rooms, and traced Mammy Juniper as she wandered from window to window, with a candle in her hand. At one o’clock a sound south of the house drew him to the road beyond Pinewood.
Mr. Armour was bringing home his father, not in their own carriage, but in a cab. With a stolid face, and much inward bewilderment, Joe saw the shrinking old figure assisted through the gate in the wall, and put in the cottage.
“Ole man gone crazy,” he muttered, an opinion which was confirmed when he descended to the cottage half an hour later and saw his master sitting at a table playing like a baby with an empty wineglass and some teaspoons, and Dr. Camperdown, Mr. Armour, and Mammy Juniper looking at him with facial expressions hard to describe.
A little later the two gentlemen ascended to the house, where Camperdown left Mr. Armour and drove back to the town.
At two o’clock Joe, standing opposite the windows of the library, was keenly watching Mr. Armour, who was quietly pacing up and down the room.
There was something wrong. Mr. Armour’s face was too white and stern for an ordinary occasion, and where was Miss Debbiline? Joe was uneasy, yet true to his natural instincts he waited on, for he would not ask questions so long as he hoped to gain the information he wished by ocular demonstration.