Part 8 (1/2)

As she sewed she found herself looking up moment by moment at the window. It was not long before she saw the same figure there again, close now, and in the full light. Her hands dropped nerveless upon her knee; she sat gazing with strained whitened face. The outline of the clothes she a.s.sociated with the thought of Toyner, but from under the dark hat her father's face looked at her. Not the face of a man she thought, but the face of a spirit, as white as if it were lifeless, as haggard as if it were dead, but with blazing life in the eyeb.a.l.l.s and a line like red fire round their rims. In a moment it was gone again.

Ann started up possessed with the desire to prove the ghostly visitant material; pa.s.sing through the door, she fled outside with her lamp.

Whatever had been there had withdrawn itself more quickly than she had come to seek it.

She felt convinced now that her father was dead; she fell to imagining all the ways in which the tragic end might have come. No thought that came to her was satisfactory. What had Bart done? Why had his form seemed to her so inextricably confused with the form of her father at the moment of the apparition? The recognition of a man or his garments, although the result of observation, does not usually carry with it any consciousness of the details that we have observed; and she did not know now what it was that had made her think of Toyner so strongly.

The next morning, as the day was beginning to wear on, one of the Fentown men put his head into Ann's door.

”Do you happen to know where Toyner is?” he asked.

She gave a negative, only to be obliged to repeat it to several questions in quick succession.

”Seen him this morning?”

”Seen him last night?”

”Happen to know where he would likely be?”

The growing feeling of distress in Ann's mind made the shake of her head more and more emphatic. She was of course an object of more or less pity to every one at that time, and the intruder made an explanation that had some tone of apology.

”Oh, well, I didn't know but as you might have happened to have seen him since he came back. His boat's there at the landing all right, but his mother's not seen him up to the house.”

During the day Ann heard the same tale in several different forms.

Toyner was one of those quiet men not often in request by his neighbours; and as he was known at present to have reason possibly for hidden movements in search of his quarry, there was not that hue and cry raised concerning the presence of the boat and the absence of the owner that would have been aroused in the case of some other; still, the interest in his whereabouts gradually grew, and Ann heard the talk about it. Within her own heart an unexpressed terror grew stronger and stronger. It was founded upon the sense of personal responsibility. She alone knew the secret mission upon which Toyner had left; she alone knew of the glimpse of her father which she had caught the night before, and she doubted now whether she had seen a spirit or visible man. What had happened in the dark hour in which Toyner and Markham had met, and which of them had brought back the boat? The misery of these questions grew to be greater than she could endure; but to confide her distress to any one was impossible. To do so might not only be to put her father's enemies upon his track, but it would be to confess Bart's unfaithfulness to his public duty; and in that curious revolution of feeling which so frequently comes about in hearts where it is least expected, Ann felt the latter would be the more intolerable woe of the two.

Then came another of those strange unearthly sunsets. Ann's mind was made up. Inactivity she could endure no longer. There was one explanation that appeared to her more reasonable than any other; that was, that Bart had wavered in his resolution to relieve Markham, that the latter had died upon the tree where he was hiding, and that Bart would not show himself for the present where Ann could see him. Ann did not believe in this explanation; but because of the apparition which she thought she had seen, because of the horrible nature of the fear it entailed, she determined that, come what would, she would go to that secret place which she alone knew and find out if her father had been taken from it or if any trace remained there to show what had really happened. It was when the sisters were again alone for the night that she first broke the silence of her fears.

”Christa, father came to the window last night, but went away again before I could catch him.”

”Sure he would never show his face in this place, Ann. You must have been dreaming!”

”Well, I must try to find him. I tell you what I'm going to do. I've been along all the boats, and there's not one of them I could take without being heard except David Brown's canoe that is tied at the foot of his father's field. I could get that, and I expect to be back here long before it's light. If any one should come to the door asking for me, you say, like the other night, that I'm ill and can't see them.”

”Yes,” said Christa, without exhibiting much interest. Ann had been the _deus ex machina_ of the house since Christa's babyhood. It never occurred to her that any power needed to interfere on behalf of Ann.

”But if I shouldn't get back by daylight, you'll have to manage to say a word to David Brown. Tell him that I borrowed his canoe for a very special purpose. If you just say that, he'll have sense not to make a fuss.”

”Yes,” said Christa sleepily.

CHAPTER XIII.

The canoe did not answer to Ann's one slim Indian paddle so lightly as the boat she had taken before had answered to the oars. Kneeling upright in the stern, she was obliged to keep her body in perfect balance.

The moon did not rise now until late, but the smoke that had for two days hung so still and dim had been lifted on a light breeze that came with the darkness. The stars were clear above, and Ann's eyes were well accustomed to the wood and stream.

Ah! how long it seemed before she came round the bend of the river and down to the blasted tree. She felt a repulsion for the whole death-like place to-night that she had not felt before. She had been sure the other night of meeting some one at the end of her secret journey, and now the best she could hope was that the place would be empty; and even if it were empty, perhaps, for all she knew, one of the men for whom she was seeking might be lying dead in the water beneath. Certainly the inexplicable appearance of her father the night before had shaken her nerves. Ann was doing a braver thing than she had ever done in her life, because she was a prey to terror. Lonely as the desolate Ahwewee was, to turn from it into the windings of the secret opening seemed like leaving the world behind and going alone into a region of death. There was no sound but the splash of paddle, the ripple of the still water under the canoe, the occasional voice of a frog from the swampy edges of the lake, and the shrill murmur of crickets from the dry fields beyond.

When Ann came near she saw the bound figure reclining in the arms of the fallen tree. Then she believed that her worst fear had been true--that Bart had been unfaithful, and that her father had died in this wretched place. He must be dead because she had seen his spirit!