When day came again Cunningham awoke with the conviction that something very pleasant had happened. He puzzled vaguely over it for a long time. And then he realized that it was a thing that had come to him just before he slept and had made his heart pump faster and more loudly. When he kissed Maria, she had not struggled nor been angry. On the contrary she had lifted her lips to his. And yet it had been no practised gesture, but the response of sheer instinct to one man only.
Cunningham’s heart pounded a little and he got up with a serene contentment filling him. The route to romance had led him to happiness, he was sure.
He went downstairs and went out on the porch just to look up at the hills in which he would find her presently.
Vladimir was there, talking to a newcomer whose clothing and air confirmed the guess that he was a servant. But not an ordinary servant. His face was gross and stupid where Vladimir’s was keen and cruel, but his features had no less of instinctive arrogance, though veiled by servility at the moment.
Vladimir’s lips twitched into a snarl of hatred when he saw Cunningham, and he spoke to his servant. The man looked at Cunningham and scowled.
But Cunningham went indoors and had breakfast joyously. Then he started out to find Maria. Technically, as he reflected, he was compounding a felony in going to the Strange People to advise them how to keep out of the clutches of the law. Some of them had been involved in the killing of Vladimir’s brother. But Cunningham beamed as he clambered up the steep hillside toward those mysterious thickets in which the Strange People lurked.
He had gone up perhaps half the way when he heard a faint rustling behind him. He turned and shouted, thinking it a Stranger who would lead him to Stephan and Maria. But the rustling stopped. After a little while he went on, frowning. Later the rustling began again, somewhat nearer.
And then Cunningham heard whistles far off in the thickets. He heard other rustlings, as if men were moving swiftly through the undergrowth. These last sounds came from both sides of him. And then he came suddenly upon a young Stranger, running headlong toward him with his hand on his knife-hilt. The Stranger lifted his hand, unsmilingly, and ran on.
“Stephan,” cried Cunningham; “where is he?”