He asked himself all these questions and answered them all with disinterested logic; and yet he felt no less anxious and no less impatient. He climbed the fence and stared accusingly at the house. He was joined by the little black dog, with whom he was now on familiar terms. Together they strolled to the far side of the barns, where Blackie started a chipmunk along the pasture fence; but Akerley could not wait to watch the excitement. He left the chase in full cry and hastened back to a point from which he could see the house as if he had been absent a year. It had been out of his sight for exactly five minutes; and still she was not on her way. He wondered if he had said anything that could possibly have offended her, anything that she could possibly have misunderstood, and wracked his memory for every word that they had exchanged since morning. He could not recall anything of the kind or anything in her manner to suggest anything of the kind. Again he took himself to task for his foolishness.
“Your nerves are crossed, Tom Akerley,” he said. “Your wind is up in vertical gusts. Your brains are addled. You are so devilish lonely that you’ve gone dotty. You expect a girl who doesn’t know you from Adam to sit around and entertain you all the time and neglect her poor old grandfather; and it isn’t because you are used to it, old son, for no other woman ever neglected so much as a dog to entertain you. Buck up! Pull yourself together! Forget it!”
He filled and lit the clay pipe and sat on the top rail of the fence and smoked. Twilight deepened to dusk, the stars appeared, bats flickered and fire-flies blinked their sailing sparks; and lamplight glowed softly from the windows of the house.
It was long past ten o’clock when Catherine made her appearance, carrying a lighted lantern in her left hand and a large bundle under her right arm. She found Akerley on the top rail of the fence. He slid to his feet the moment the swinging circle of light discovered him, and strode forward to meet her.
“I was afraid you were never coming,” he said. “I began to fear that the old man had mistaken you for the devil. What have you there?”
“I thought I’d find you asleep,” she replied. “I didn’t say I was coming back to-night, you know. But I had to. Grandfather is feeling much better and will be up and out bright and early in the morning, so I have had to get these clothes ready for you to-night. And here are an old quilt and things—a frying-pan and old kettle—to make a pack of. You must leave here before sunrise and come back about breakfast-time. I’ll show you the road to come in by now—the road from Boiling Pot.”
Akerley took the bundle from her.
“You have been working all evening for me; and I am not accustomed to this sort of thing,” he said. “You are a very wonderful person, Catherine MacKim.”
“What do you mean by wonderful?” she asked curiously.
“You are wonderfully kind. I don’t believe there are many girls in the world who would take the trouble to fit me out like this. I may be wrong, for I don’t know many girls or women.”