Caleb made no reply this time. He walked on, choosing the road, nor did he look again toward the house. He had the unpleasant consciousness that the negro had read him as easily as he himself read more profound riddles in the exact sciences.
He passed the last confines of Broad Acres and turned, involuntarily, into the trail which led him to the spot where he had stood months before with Diana and told her that he loved her. Afterwards he had wondered at himself, that his pride had not revolted at the confession, yet he had never altogether repented of it. There had been some comfort in telling her the truth, the naked truth. He recalled the look in her eyes in the court-room! He put that thought steadily away and walked rapidly on. Another turn would show him the long glimpse of Paradise Ridge. Before him the trail ascended under sweeping hemlock boughs, beside him the brush rose breast high. Once he thought he heard a crackle of twigs and turned sharply, but there was no one in sight. Then, looking ahead, he saw Diana Royall.
She was coming down the path alone, and the sunset sky behind her darkened the outlines of her tall young figure until it was silhouetted against the sky. He noticed that her dress was gray and that her large black hat framed the fair oval of her face. As she drew nearer he was aware of the gravity and sweetness of her expression. As yet the distance was too great for speech and he did not hurry his step; there was, perhaps, more joy in the thought of this meeting than in its accomplishment. But he saw nothing but this picture, the mellow sky behind it, the hemlock boughs above.
Then, quite suddenly, he felt a stinging shock and heard a loud report, as he reeled and fell back into darkness, the vision going out as though a great black sponge had effaced life itself.
Diana rushed to him; she had seen more than he, but no warning of hers would have reached him in time, and now she did not think of herself, or of any possible danger. She dropped on her knees beside him and bent down to look into his face. His eyes were closed; she could not tell if he breathed, and even while she looked she saw a dark red stain on the breast of his coat. She uttered a low cry, and tried to raise his head on her arm. She realized at last the power that his very presence exerted, the influence that he had had over her from the very first, that had made her yield again and again to a sense of his mastery. She loved him. She no longer tried to deny it to herself, and she felt that it was to her shame that no accusation against him could shake her in her devotion. Whatever he had been she loved him; whatever his faults, in her eyes there must be, there would be, an extenuation; whatever his sins she could forgive them! Class prejudice counted for nothing; she was his, and nothing in the world mattered to her in that one blind moment of agony for his life.
“Oh, God,� she prayed softly, “spare me this!�
She was in despair, his head lay heavy on her arm, his blood stained her hands, and she was alone. The wind stirred and a dead leaf fluttered down. How still it was! To leave him and run for help seemed her only resource, but to leave him! She could not do it! She thought him dead, but not a tear came to her dry eyes; she looked down at his white face and marked the lines of trouble and anxiety, the resolution of the locked mouth and jaw. Did he breathe? “Oh, God!� she prayed again.
She remembered, too, that it was here that he had told her so abruptly that he loved her. She, too, remembered that moment in the court-room, and a dry sob of anguish shook her from head to foot. She bent down suddenly and kissed him, but she could not shed a tear.
Then, in the stillness, she heard wheels, and laying him gently down, she ran through the underbrush and reached the road just below the fork. It was Dr. Cheyney’s old buggy, and she cried to him that Caleb Trench was shot and lying wounded in the trail. The old man got down and followed her without a word, his lips set. They came up the trail and found Trench lying as she had left him; he did not seem to breathe. Dr. Cheyney knelt down and made a brief examination, then he looked for something to stop the bleeding. Diana gave him a long light scarf she had worn around her throat; she was quick and deft in her touch and worked steadily to help the doctor; she had mastered herself. The old man fumbling over Caleb drew out a bit of blood-stained paper and glanced at it. Then he went on with his task.
“Is he living?� Diana murmured at last.