第33章

She had said to herself, as she always said in moments of revolt: "I'll go to the Mountain--I'll go back to my own folks." She had never really meant it before; but now, as she considered her case, no other course seemed open.She had never learned any trade that would have given her independence in a strange place, and she knew no one in the big towns of the valley, where she might have hoped to find employment.Miss Hatchard was still away; but even had she been at North Dormer she was the last person to whom Charity would have turned, since one of the motives urging her to flight was the wish not to see Lucius Harney.Travelling back from Nettleton, in the crowded brightly-lit train, all exchange of confidence between them had been impossible; but during their drive from Hepburn to Creston River she had gathered from Harney's snatches of consolatory talk--again hampered by the freckled boy's presence--that he intended to see her the next day.At the moment she had found a vague comfort in the assurance; but in the desolate lucidity of the hours that followed she had come to see the impossibility of meeting him again.Her dream of comradeship was over; and the scene on the wharf--vile and disgraceful as it had been--had after all shed the light of truth on her minute of madness.It was as if her guardian's words had stripped her bare in the face of the grinning crowd and proclaimed to the world the secret admonitions of her conscience.

She did not think these things out clearly; she simply followed the blind propulsion of her wretchedness.She did not want, ever again, to see anyone she had known;above all, she did not want to see Harney....

She climbed the hill-path behind the house and struck through the woods by a short-cut leading to the Creston road.A lead-coloured sky hung heavily over the fields, and in the forest the motionless air was stifling; but she pushed on, impatient to reach the road which was the shortest way to the Mountain.

To do so, she had to follow the Creston road for a mile or two, and go within half a mile of the village; and she walked quickly, fearing to meet Harney.But there was no sign of him, and she had almost reached the branch road when she saw the flanks of a large white tent projecting through the trees by the roadside.She supposed that it sheltered a travelling circus which had come there for the Fourth; but as she drew nearer she saw, over the folded-back flap, a large sign bearing the inscription, "Gospel Tent." The interior seemed to be empty; but a young man in a black alpaca coat, his lank hair parted over a round white face, stepped from under the flap and advanced toward her with a smile.

"Sister, your Saviour knows everything.Won't you come in and lay your guilt before Him?" he asked insinuatingly, putting his hand on her arm.

Charity started back and flushed.For a moment she thought the evangelist must have heard a report of the scene at Nettleton; then she saw the absurdity of the supposition.

"I on'y wish't I had any to lay!" she retorted, with one of her fierce flashes of self-derision;and the young man murmured, aghast: "Oh, Sister, don't speak blasphemy...."But she had jerked her arm out of his hold, and was running up the branch road, trembling with the fear of meeting a familiar face.Presently she was out of sight of the village, and climbing into the heart of the forest.She could not hope to do the fifteen miles to the Mountain that afternoon; but she knew of a place half-way to Hamblin where she could sleep, and where no one would think of looking for her.It was a little deserted house on a slope in one of the lonely rifts of the hills.She had seen it once, years before, when she had gone on a nutting expedition to the grove of walnuts below it.The party had taken refuge in the house from a sudden mountain storm, and she remembered that Ben Sollas, who liked frightening girls, had told them that it was said to be haunted.

She was growing faint and tired, for she had eaten nothing since morning, and was not used to walking so far.Her head felt light and she sat down for a moment by the roadside.As she sat there she heard the click of a bicycle-bell, and started up to plunge back into the forest; but before she could move the bicycle had swept around the curve of the road, and Harney, jumping off, was approaching her with outstretched arms.

"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?"

She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the unexpectedness of his being there that no words came to her.

"Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was coming?" he continued, trying to draw her to him; but she shrank from his embrace.

"I was going away--I don't want to see you--I want you should leave me alone," she broke out wildly.

He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the shadow of a premonition brushed it.

"Going away--from me, Charity?"

"From everybody.I want you should leave me."He stood glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely forest road that stretched away into sun-flecked distances.

"Where were you going?'

"Home."

"Home--this way?"