Part 47 (2/2)

The sailor shook his head.

”Ain't seen no one answering to that name, nor to that description.

There wasn't a handsome-featured one in the lot, nor a David. But if you're expecting him along, why don't you take her in and let her look 'em over? They told me at the Fort the trains was mostly all in or ought to be. Any time now the snow on the summit will be too deep for 'em. If they get caught up there they can't be got out, so they're coming over hot foot and are dumped down round Hock Farm. Not much to see, but if you're looking for a friend it's worth trying.”

That night Courant was again wakeful. Susan's face, as she had questioned the sailor, floated before him on the darkness. With it came the thought of the dead man. In the silence David called upon him from the sepulcher beneath the rock, sent a message through the night which said that, though he was hidden from mortal vision, the memory of him was still alive, imbued with an unquenchable vitality. His unwinking eyes, with the rock crumbs sifting on them, looked at those of his triumphant enemy and spoke through their dusted films. In the moment of death they had said nothing to him, now they shone--not angrily accusing as they had been in life--but stern with a vindictive purpose.

Courant began to have a fearful understanding of their meaning. Though dead to the rest of the world, David would maintain an intense and secret life in his murderer's conscience. He had never fought such a subtle and implacable foe, and he lay thinking of how he could create conditions that would give him escape, push the phantom from him, make him forget, and be as he had been when no one had disputed his sovereignty over himself. He tried to think that time would mitigate this haunting discomfort. His sense of guilt, his fear of his wife, would die when the novelty of once again being one with the crowd had worn away. It was not possible that he, defiant of man and G.o.d, could languish under this dread of a midnight visitation or a discovery that never would be made. It was the reentering into the communal life that had upset his poise--or was it the influence of the woman, the softly pervasive, enervating influence? He came up against this thought with a dizzying impact and felt himself droop and sicken as one who is faced with a task for which his strength is inadequate.

He turned stealthily and lay on his back, his face beaded with sweat.

The girl beside him waked and sat up casting a side glance at him. By the starlight, slanting in through the raised tent door, she saw his opened eyes and, leaning toward him, a black shape against the faintly blue triangle, said:

”Low, are you awake?”

He answered without moving, glad to hear her speak, to know that sleep had left her and her voice might conjure away his black imaginings.

”Why aren't you sleeping?” she asked. ”You must be half dead after such work as you did today.”

”I was thinking--” then hastily, for he was afraid that she might sense his mood and ply him with sympathetic queries: ”Sometimes people are too tired to sleep. I am, and so I was lying here just thinking of nothing.”

His fears were unnecessary. She was as healthily oblivious of his disturbance as he was morbidly conscious of it. She sat still, her hands clasped round her knees, about which the blanket draped blackly.

”I was thinking, too,” she said.

”Of what?”

”Of what that man was saying of David.”

There was a silence. He lay motionless, his trouble coming back upon him. He wished that he might dare to impose upon her a silence on that one subject. David, given a place in her mind, would sit at every feast, walk beside them, lie between them in their marriage bed.

”Why do you think of him?” he asked.

”Because--” her tone showed surprise. ”It's natural, isn't it? Don't you? I'm sure you do. I do often, much oftener than you think. I'm always hoping that he'll come.”

”You never loved him,” he said, in a voice from which all spring was gone.

”No, but he was my friend, and I would like to keep him so for always.

I think of his kindness, his gentleness, all the good part of him before the trail broke him down. And, I think, too, how cruel I was to him.”

The darkness hid her face, but her voice told that she, too, had her little load of guilt where David was concerned.

The man moved uneasily.

”That's foolishness. You only told the truth. If it was cruel, that's not your affair.”

”He loved me. A woman doesn't forget that.”

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