“Does it?” Kate smiled tenderly across at him. “Well, good luck anyway.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
AN ENCOUNTER
Service was still proceeding at the Meeting House. The valley was quiet. Scarcely a sound broke the perfect peace of the Sabbath morning. The sun blazed down, a blistering fragrant heat, and the laden atmosphere of the valley suggested only the rusticity, the simple innocence of a pastoral world.
At Kate Seton’s homestead a profound quiet reigned. There was the occasional rattle of a collar chain to be heard proceeding from the barn; the clucking of a foolish hen, fussing over a well-discovered worm of plump proportions, sounded musically upon the air, and in perfect harmony with the radiant, ripening sunlight. A stupid mongrel pup stretched itself luxuriantly upon the ground in the shade of the barn, and drowsily watched the busy hens, with one eye half open. Another, evidently the brother of the former, was more actively inclined. He was snuffing at the splashes of axle “dope” on the ground beneath the wagon. He was young enough to eat, and appreciate, anything he could get his baby teeth into.
There was scarcely a sign of life about the place otherwise. The whole valley was enjoying that perfect, almost holy, calm, to be found pretty well all the world over, yielded by man to the hours of worship.
Inside the house there was greater activity. Kate Seton was in her homely parlor. She was at her desk. That Bluebeard’s chamber, which roused so much curiosity in her sister, was open. The drawers were unlocked, and Kate was sorting out papers, and collecting the loose paper money she kept there.
She was very busy and profoundly occupied. But none of her movements were hurried, or suggested anything but the simple preparations of one about to leave home.
Her work did not take her long. All the loose money was collected into a pocketbook, bearing her initials in silver on its outer cover. This she bestowed in the bosom of her dress. Then, very deliberately, she tore up a lot of letters and loose papers, thrust them in the cookstove, and watched them burn in the fragment of fire smouldering there. Next she passed across to the wall where her loaded revolvers were hanging, and took one of them from its nail. Then, with an air of perfect calm and assurance, she passed out of the room to her bedroom, where a grip lay open on the simple white coverlet of her bed.