CHAPTER XVII.
SEEN THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR.
Owen Dugdale had been more deeply affected by what his friend had said about the little witch of the fort than even Cuthbert suspected.
Somehow the lonely lad had never conceived of such a possibility as having a cousin to love, and when he heard of it for the first time he was staggered by the change this seemed to make in affairs.
Unable to properly ponder over the matter within the tent where Eli would naturally be wanting to ask ordinary questions that must disturb his mental scrutiny, he determined to go by himself and spend an hour or so threshing matters out once and for all.
This hatred for the old factor had become so much a part of his nature that he was able to only see one side of the case, and for the first time in his life he found himself beginning to entertain a slight suspicion that he had purposely blinded his eyes to facts that might present a different aspect to things.
Memories of his sainted mother arose to haunt him; perhaps the incident of little Sallie and her conception of her "duty" by her brute of a father, just because she had promised the mother who was gone to watch over him, had awakened these thoughts afresh, for Owen, too, had promised to try and overcome his hard feelings for the old factor, though as yet without making any progress.
Still, tonight he seemed to be in a more amiable mood than for a long time.
Before his mind arose the last scene, when he knelt beside his widowed mother, and heard her whispered prayer that he might grow up to be a noble man, free from the accursed Gregory spirit that had helped to make her own life unhappy.
Had he made an earnest effort that way?