For a moment his heart ceased to beat, then it throbbed suffocatingly and his hand went to his breast and clutched the bill book where lay the tender little poem. There at her elbow lay the copy she had so carefully made. The air of the room was warm and drowsy, and the stillness was only broken by the low buzzing of two great bluebottle flies that struggled futilely against the high window panes. Dear little tired Betty! Dreaming,––of whom? The breath came through her parted lips, softly and evenly, and the last ray of the sun fell on her flushed cheek and brought out the touch of gold in her hair.
The young man turned away and crossed the bare floor with light steps and drew the door softly shut after him as he went out. No one might look upon her as she slept, with less reverent eyes. Some distance away, where the road began to ascend toward the river bluff, he seated himself on a stone overlooking the little schoolhouse and the road beyond. There he took up his lonely watch, until he saw Betty come out and walk hurriedly toward the village, carrying a book and swinging her hat by the long ribbon ties; then he went on climbing the winding path to the top of the bluff overlooking the river.
Moodily he paced up and down along the edge of the bluff, and finally followed a zigzag path to the great rocks below, that at this point seemed to have hurled themselves down there to do battle with the eager, dominating flood. 339 For a while he stood gazing into the rushing water, not as though he were fascinated by it, but rather as if he were held to the spot by some inward vision. Presently he seemed to wake with a start and looked back along the narrow, steep path, and up to the overhanging edge of the bluff, scanning it closely.
“Yes, yes. There is the notch where it lay, and this may be the very stone on which I am standing. What an easy thing to fall over there and meet death halfway!” He muttered the words under his breath and began slowly to climb the difficult ascent.
The sun was gone, and down by the water a cold, damp current of air seemed to sweep around the curve of the bluff along with the rush of the river. As he climbed he came to a warmer wave of air, and the dusk closed softly around him, as if nature were casting a friendly curtain over the drowsing earth; and the roar of the river came up to him, no longer angrily, but in a ceaseless, subdued complaint.
Again he paced the top of the bluff, and at last seated himself with his feet hanging over the edge, at the spot from which the stone had fallen. The trees on this wind-swept place were mostly gnarled oaks, old and strong and rugged, standing like a band of weather-beaten life guardsmen overlooking the miles of country around. Not twenty paces from where the young man sat, half reclining on his elbow, stood one of these oaks, and close to its great trunk on its shadowed side a man bent forward intently watching him. Whenever the young man shifted his position restlessly, the figure made a darting movement forward as if to snatch him from the dangerous brink, then recoiled and continued to watch.
Soon the young man seemed to be aware of the presence and watchful eye, and looked behind him, peering into the dusk. Then the man left his place and came toward him, with slow, sauntering step.
“Hullo!” he said, with an insinuating, rising inflection and in the soft voice of the Scandinavian.
“Hallo!” replied the young man.