She hurried on. A little ahead of him she could command herself; to meet his look just now was more than she could bear.
“Shall you go down to Mapleton?” she managed to ask him. “The Prices and Dr. Gerry will want so much to see you. So will papa—you know that!”
“I did intend to go there at once; but now—yes, I suppose I shall. A man goes home, doesn’t he, for the same reason that a cat returns to the old house? It’s habit.”
“They’ll all be so glad to see you—you shouldn’t call it just habit to go back there. It was—it is your home, isn’t it?”
He laughed a little bitterly.
“I haven’t a home in the sense that you mean. I think I’ll be henceforth a nomadic creature. I’ve been away too long!”
She understood the bitterness in his tone, and she fought against the wave of feeling that submerged her being. She had scarcely dreamed that his voice could mean so much to her. The sound of it brought back those old days when she had listened for it—the days when Faunce had had no place in her thoughts, though now she was his wife!
As she walked blindly on, hearing Overton’s step behind her once more, feeling his presence, it seemed incredible that they were separated forever, that her own act had made an impassable gulf between them. She struggled with herself. She had believed in her love for Faunce; she believed in it still. If she did not love him, why should she suffer so deeply at the horrible doubt of him that had assailed her? She loved him, she must believe in him, and—if she could not believe in him—she must suffer with him.
They had reached a turn in the path. Below them lay a wild ravine where a mountain stream tumbled over the rocks, lashed itself to foam in its descent, and then dropped placidly into a wide pool, where in summer the speckled trout darted in lovely shallows and the water-lilies bloomed. Beyond, the hills rose one above another until they darkened into the purple distance, piled like a mass of heavy clouds against the deepening splendor of the western sky.
Near at hand, rising above some clustering evergreens, was the roof of the little cottage that Judge Herford had built for an occasional summer vacation. A white plume of smoke rose from the single chimney in the center, and they could see the sun shining on the window-panes.