Fyles shook his head. The woman’s obvious convictions left him quite untouched. Had it been any other who spoke of it he would have derided the whole idea. But since it was Kate’s distress, Kate’s belief in the old legend, he refrained.
“The only calamity that can affect you, Kate, is a calamity for young Bryant,” he said seriously. “And yet you refuse to believe him concerned with the affairs of—Monday night. Surely you can have no misgivings on that score?”
Kate shook her head.
“Then what do you fear?” Fyles went on patiently.
Quite slowly the woman raised her big eyes to her companion’s face. For some moments they steadily looked into his. Then slowly into her gaze there crept an inscrutable expression that was not wholly without a shadow of a smile.
“It is your reason against my—superstition,” she said slowly. “On Monday night you will capture, or fail to capture, the gang you are after. Maybe it will be within an hour of the cutting down of that tree. Disaster will occur. Blood will flow. Death! Any, or all of these things. For whom? I cannot—will not—wait to see. I shall leave to-morrow morning after service—for Myrtle.”
Kate locked the door of the Meeting House behind them. Then she held out her hand. Fyles took it and pressed it tenderly.
“Why,” he asked gently, almost humbly, “have you so deliberately avoided me lately?”
The woman stroked Peter’s brown head as it was pushed forward beside the man’s shoulder.