Seagreave had evidently seen her coming, for before she lifted her hand to knock he threw open the door. "Ah," he cried, a touch of concern in his voice, "I was just going down to the other cabin to make up the fires before you came. If you stopped there you must have found it cold, and you did stop," his quick eye noting the change she had effected in her costume.
"Yes," she smiled, "they wouldn't let me come up the hill in José's coat and my rose petticoats, and I felt like a miner in the clothes they lent me." She had entered the cabin and had taken the chair he had pushed up near the crackling, blazing fire of logs which he had just finished building to his satisfaction. The bond of sympathy between Seagreave and José was probably that they both performed all manual tasks with a sort of beautiful precision. Gallito had characterized Harry's cabin as the cell of a monk. It was indeed simple and plain to austerity, and yet it possessed the beauty of a prevailing order and harmony. Shelves his own hands had made lined the rough walls and were filled with books; beside the wide fireplace was an open cupboard, displaying his small and shining store of cooking utensils. For the rest a table or two and a few chairs were all the room contained.
It was the first time Pearl had ever been in the cabin, and, although she maintained the graceful languor of her pose, lying back a little wearily in her chair, yet her narrow, gleaming eyes pierced every corner of the room, with avid eagerness absorbing the whole, and then returning for a closer and more penetrating study of details, as if demanding from this room where he lived and thought a comprehensive revelation of him, a key to that remote, uncharted self which still evaded her.
Seagreave himself, whose visible presence was, for the time, outside the field of her conjecture, was busy preparing her breakfast, and now, after laying the cloth, he placed a chair for her at the table and announced that everything was ready. He seated himself opposite her and Pearl's heart thrilled at the prospect of this intimate tête-a-tête, the color rose on her cheek, her lashes trembled and fell.
"Where's José?" she said hastily, to cover her slight, unusual embarrassment. "Tell me quick how you managed it. Neither Bob nor Pop could tell me because someone was always with us."
"Ah," he said, "the gods were with us, but it was a wild chance, I assure you. Fortunately, it was still snowing. Hugh and José were already in the cart and everyone else had hastened home as fast as he or she could go. The boys would not have waited for me if I had not dashed out just when I did, and I was glad enough to escape, for I was afraid they would make some mistake in the road, Hugh not being able to see, and José familiar with the village only through our description of it. I wasted no time in jumping into the cart and then drove like Jehu to the Mont d'Or, fortunately on our way up the hill."
"The Mont d'Or!" she interjected in surprise. "But why did you stop there?"
He shrugged his shoulders significantly. "It is José's shelter. He had the keys of the engine room. Your father had sent them to him, and with them he let himself in, and then locked the door behind him. We got a fair start, of course, but it was only a few moments after we reached here that three or four of the deputies were on our heels."
"Ah," she cried, "they thought you had driven him here."
"Naturally, and it is unnecessary to say that they spent several hours in searching, not only this cabin, but your father's and Mrs. Nitschkan's to boot, and also the stable yonder." He pointed to a little shed farther up the hill where he kept his horse and cart. He held out his coffee cup for her to refill and laughed heartily. "I have no doubt that they will return at intervals during the day to see if there isn't some tree-top or ledge of rock that they may have overlooked; but at present they are too busy exploring every nook and cranny of the various mines, especially the Mont d'Or."