Her anger subsided, not that she resented the wrong the less, but that her mind had passed to other contemplations. She was thinking of George, of her dead hopes, of the blankness of the future before her. A little sunlight had fallen on her sad and monotonous life, but it had been withdrawn, and had left her with nothing to live for, save her mother. Her heart had begun to expand as a flower, and a frost had fallen on it, and blackened its petals. She brooded now on the past. She wished for nothing in the future. She had no care for the present. It was all one to her what befell her, so long as her mother were cared for. She had no one else to love. She was without a friend. She would resent an injury, and fight an enemy. George might have introduced her into a new world of gentleness, and pity, and love. Now the door to that world was shut for ever, and she must beat her way through a world of hard realities, where every man's hand was lifted against his brother, and where was hate and resentment, and exacting of the uttermost farthing. She had gone forth seeking help, and except from George, had found none. Mrs. De Witt, Phoebe Musset, Admonition, such were the women she had met; and the men were selfish as Parson Till, fools as Charles Pettican, surly as Abraham Dowsing, or brutal as Elijah Rebow.
Hark!—She caught the dip of an oar.
She drew in her breath and raised her head. Then she saw a boat shoot out of the mist, white and ghost-like as the mist forms that stalked over the water, and in the boat a man.
There he was! The sheep-stealer, come once more to rob her mother and herself. At once her furious passion boiled up in her veins. She saw before her the man who had wronged her; she thought nothing of her own weakness beside his strength, of there being no one within call to come to her aid, should his arm be stouter than hers. She sprang to her feet with a shout, such as an Indian might utter on leaping on his foe, and rushed to the water's edge, just as the man had landed, and had her hands at his throat in a moment.
'You coward, you thief!' she cried shaking him savagely.
'Glory!'
In an instant a pair of stronger hands had wrenched her hands away and pinioned them.
'By heaven! you wild cat, what are you flying at me like that for? What has brought you here at this time of night?'
Mehalah was abashed. Her rage sank. She had mistaken her man. This was no sheep-stealer. She could not speak, so great was her agitation. She writhed to free herself, but writhed in vain. Elijah laughed at her attempts.
'What are you here for?' he asked again. 'Can you not answer my question?'