At length the sound of approaching footsteps crunching the hard, frozen snow in the road on the other side of the fence sent him from the window.
He stepped quickly into the shadow of the house, then behind a tree, whence he could have almost laid his hand on the shoulder of the old farmer as he passed on his way from the front gate to the kitchen door.
“I moight a blowed his brains out and he’d never a knowed what hurt him,” the intruder said to himself with a bitter laugh as he turned and stole away to seek shelter in the barn.
Meanwhile Himes was shaking and pounding the kitchen door. Belinda heard him, hastily threw aside bonnet and shawl, snatched up the lamp, and hurried to admit him.
“What are ye locked up fer?” he growled. “Keep a man freezin’ outside till ye choose to let him in, will ye?”
“’Twasn’t two minutes,” she said; “and I can tell you I’m not a goin’ to stay here alone after dark with the doors unfastened and burglars about.”
“Fixed up at last!” he remarked, jeeringly, and eyeing her askance as she set the lamp on the table.
Picking it up, he walked into the bedroom. She had left the door ajar in her haste, and he seemed to know by intuition that she had been there, and at something she would prefer to hide from him.
That was the fact; for though he must, of course, learn at some time of her new purchases, she wished, since it was sure to anger him, to put off the evil day as long as possible.
She followed him with a half-terrified, half-defiant air.