第34章

"While I would not give you false hopes,Mr.Collinson,"he said,with a bland smile,"my interest in you compels me to say that you may be over confident and wrong.There are a thousand things that may have prevented your wife from coming to you,--illness,possibly the result of her exposure,poverty,misapprehension of your place of meeting,and,above all,perhaps some false report of your own death.Has it ever occurred to you that it is as possible for her to have been deceived in that way as for you?""Wot yer say?"said Collinson,with a vague suspicion.

"What I mean.You think yourself justified in believing your wife dead,because she did not seek you here;may she not feel herself equally justified in believing the same of you,because you had not sought her elsewhere?""But it was writ that she was comin'yere,and--I boarded every train that come in that fall,"said Collinson,with a new irritation,unlike his usual calm.

"Except one,my dear Collinson,--except one,"returned Chivers,holding up a fat forefinger smilingly."And that may be the clue.

Now,listen!There is still a chance of following it,if you will.

The name of my friends were Mr.and Mrs.Barker.I regret,"he added,with a perfunctory cough,"that poor Barker is dead.He was not such an exemplary husband as you are,my dear Collinson,and Ifear was not all that Mrs.Barker could have wished;enough that he succumbed from various excesses,and did not leave me Mrs.Barker's present address.But she has a young friend,a ward,living at the convent of Santa Luisa,whose name is Miss Rivers,who can put you in communication with her.Now,one thing more:I can understand your feelings,and that you would wish at once to satisfy your mind.It is not,perhaps,to my interest nor the interest of my party to advise you,but,"he continued,glancing around him,"you have an admirably secluded position here,on the edge of the trail,and if you are missing from your post to-morrow morning,I shall respect your feelings,trust to your honor to keep this secret,and--consider it useless to pursue you!"There was neither shame nor pity in his heart,as the deceived man turned towards him with tremulous eagerness,and grasped his hand in silent gratitude.But the old rage and fear returned,as Collinson said gravely:--"You kinder put a new life inter me,Mr.Chivers,and I wish I had yer gift o'speech to tell ye so.But I've passed my word to the Capting thar and to the rest o'you folks that I'd stand guard out yere,and I don't go back o'my word.I mout,and I moutn't find my Sadie;but she wouldn't think the less o'me,arter these years o'waitin',ef I stayed here another night,to guard the house Ikeep in trust for her,and the strangers I've took in on her account.""As you like,then,"said Chivers,contracting his lips,"but keep your own counsel to-night.There may be those who would like to deter you from your search.And now I will leave you alone in this delightful moonlight.I quite envy you your unrestricted communion with Nature.Adios,amigo,adios!"He leaped lightly on a large rock that overhung the edge of the grade,and waved his hand.

"I wouldn't do that,Mr.Chivers,"said Collinson,with a concerned face;"them rocks are mighty ticklish,and that one in partiklar.

A tech sometimes sends 'em scooting."

Mr.Chivers leaped quickly to the ground,turned,waved his hand again,and disappeared down the grade.

But Collinson was no longer alone.Hitherto his characteristic reveries had been of the past,--reminiscences in which there was only recollection,no imagination,and very little hope.Under the spell of Chivers's words his fancy seemed to expand;he began to think of his wife as she might be now,--perhaps ill,despairing,wandering hopelessly,even ragged and footsore,or--believing HIMdead--relapsing into the resigned patience that had been his own;but always a new Sadie,whom he had never seen or known before.Afaint dread,the lightest of misgivings (perhaps coming from his very ignorance),for the first time touched his steadfast heart,and sent a chill through it.He shouldered his weapon,and walked briskly towards the edge of the thick-set woods.There were the fragrant essences of the laurel and spruce--baked in the long-day sunshine that had encompassed their recesses--still coming warm to his face;there were the strange shiftings of temperature throughout the openings,that alternately warmed and chilled him as he walked.It seemed so odd that he should now have to seek her instead of her coming to him;it would never be the same meeting to him,away from the house that he had built for her!He strolled back,and looked down upon it,nestling on the ledge.The white moonlight that lay upon it dulled the glitter of lights in its windows,but the sounds of laughter and singing came to even his unfastidious ears with a sense of vague discord.He walked back again,and began to pace before the thick-set wood.Suddenly he stopped and listened.

To any other ears but those accustomed to mountain solitude it would have seemed nothing.But,familiar as he was with all the infinite disturbances of the woodland,and even the simulation of intrusion caused by a falling branch or lapsing pine-cone,he was arrested now by a recurring sound,unlike any other.It was an occasional muffled beat--interrupted at uncertain intervals,but always returning in regular rhythm,whenever it was audible.He knew it was made by a cantering horse;that the intervals were due to the patches of dead leaves in its course,and that the varying movement was the effect of its progress through obstacles and underbrush.It was therefore coming through some "blind"cutoff in the thick-set wood.The shifting of the sound also showed that the rider was unfamiliar with the locality,and sometimes wandered from the direct course;but the unfailing and accelerating persistency of the sound,in spite of these difficulties,indicated haste and determination.