Kate stooped and picked up the lamp. As she straightened up she sighed and shook her head. It seemed to the man that a grave trouble was in her handsome eyes.
“It’s not that,” she cried, suddenly. “Lose my wager? I’m not going to lose, but even if I were—I would pay up like a sportsman. No, it’s not that. It’s these foolish folk here. It’s these stupid creatures who’re just ready to fly at the throat of Providence and defy all—all superstition. Oh, yes, I know,” she hurried on, as the man raised his strongly marked brows in astonishment. “You’ll maybe think me a fool, a silly, credulous fool. But I know—I feel it here.” She placed her hands upon her bosom with a world of dramatic sincerity.
“What—what’s troubling you, Kate? I don’t seem to get your meaning.”
It was the woman’s turn to express surprise.
“Why, you know what they’re going to do here, practically on Monday night. You’ve heard? Why, the whole village is talking of it. It’s the tree. The old pine. They’re going to cut it down.” Then she laughed mirthlessly. “They’ll use it as a ridge pole for the new church. That wicked old, cursed pine.”
“Wicked—cursed? I don’t understand,” Fyles said perplexed. “I heard about the felling of it all right—but, the other I don’t understand.”
Kate set the lamp down on one of the benches.
“Listen. I’ll tell you,” she cried. “Then maybe you’ll understand my feelings—since making my wager with you. Oh, the old story wouldn’t matter so much to me, only—only for that wager. Listen.”
Then she hurriedly told him the outline of the curse upon the tree, and further added an analysis of the situation in conjunction with the matter which stood between themselves. At the finish she pointed her argument.
“Need I say any more? Need I tell you that no logic or reason of any kind can put the conviction out of my mind that here, and now, we are to be faced with some dreadful tragedy as the price we must pay for the—the felling of that tree? I can’t help it—I know calamity will befall us.”