Fyles swung his mare about and loped back to the waiting team. When he returned to the girl they sat there together beside the trail, and watched the sleigh pass on its way to the township.
The night swallowed up the retreating vehicle and Annette found herself alone with the man whose name had never failed to inspire her with disfavor and even fear. She suddenly felt as though the earth had opened at her feet and she was staggering at the brink of the chasm. Her nerve had stood the test of her purpose. It had shown no sign of weakening at the moment of encounter. The identity of this man, however, had been curiously terrifying.
She remained silent for so long that initiative was forced upon the policeman.
“You’d best talk,” he said, forced again to his well-tried challenge.
“How d’you know I wrote that letter?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you said, ‘that letter you wrote’?”
Annette’s eyes were peering a little anxiously in the moonlight.
“It was a woman’s letter. An’ you were waiting—here.”
The girl made no reply, and again Fyles was forced to break the silence.