before long there were ominous signs in the tobet cottage. mother cary would shake her head whenever grace's name was mentioned.
"it's bad now, land knows!" she said. "but it'll be worse, come spring. it ain't for me to deny that them the lord sends he looks out for; but a body can't help wonderin' sometimes, at his choice o' the places he sends 'em to. yet it's a livin' wonder how things do work out, honey."
the doctor openly berated joe, and the two would have come to blows but for grace's pleadings; afterwards he told rosamund that mother cary had roundly scolded him for his interference, which of course ended the little influence he had over the man. joe, indeed, swore that he would 'hurt' him if he found him again in his house, and it was only at the brown cottage or the carys' that he could see poor grace and give her what help he could. tobet had also, of course, forbidden his wife to hold communication with 'the stranger woman'; but grace knew his ways and times well enough to go occasionally to both her friends' houses. she herself could not have told from which she derived more comfort.
for a while rosamund was unaware of any further evidences of the mountaineers' distrust; then, in the third week, came the most disquieting thing that had yet happened.
their evenings at the cottage were usually placid enough. rosamund had engaged the services of the young teacher of the district school to give lessons to yetta, who, with the mental avidity of her race, was fairly absorbing knowledge, and rapidly acquiring the speech and manner of the world. she worshiped rosamund, and tried to copy her in everything; she was urged onward, too, by her awakened ambition to sing, it being understood that her general education must be well on the way before the promised singing lessons should begin. the girl would have spent hours at her books, but ogilvie had forbidden her reading at night; and rosamund would read aloud to her for an hour or two after the lamps were lighted.
to-night yetta had begged, as usual, for a later bed hour, and for once had been indulged. the wind had blown from the east all day, bleak and cold. rosamund had been more and more restless with each passing hour, and now had a longing for company which made her lenient with yetta. but at last the girl had reluctantly gone upstairs; and after a while rosamund went up, too, in search of eleanor.
she had not been the only one in the house to be made restless by the wind; tim had been cross all day, and even eleanor was glad at last to see him safely tucked into bed. but, having done so, she had scarcely taken her place on the opposite side of the table from rosamund and yetta, than a little white-clad figure appeared in the doorway.
"o timmy!" eleanor had cried, protesting.
"well, i forgot to god-bless pa cary," said tim, as if that justified his reappearance.
"tim! go right back to bed!" said eleanor, with a conscientious attempt at sternness. tim hesitated, wavered on the threshold, and she gained in courage. "go back at once!" she said.
his under lip began to tremble. "i can't god-bless wivout somebody to say it to!" he said, and eleanor got up, took him by the hand, and led him up to bed and his devotions.
since then she had not come down again, and when rosamund went in search of her it was to find her on her knees beside tim's bed, asleep, her pale gold hair mingling with the yellow of his, her arms across his little body, one of his hands on her cheek.
rosamund crept downstairs again, the loneliness of a moment ago pressing now upon her heart like a pain. the sitting-room was warm and cosy, with its open fire and the lamp with a yellow shade; but it was empty, for all that. she crossed the room to the window that faced the valley and rolled up the shade. through the wind-swept air mother cary's light twinkled brightly on the opposite mountain; that was a home, too. it added to her sense of loneliness. she went back to her place by the table, her thoughts wandering—from the happy two in the room overhead, to her plans for yetta; from ogilvie, to flood; from the present——
but, gradually, insensibly, into her mental atmosphere, there crept a shadowy, indefinable influence, something malevolent and strangely disquieting. she had never known fear; but as she sat there she shuddered, became cold with an unearthly chill, as if some premonition of horror were laying its clammy hand upon her. she said afterward that she felt herself in a cloud of dread and apprehension such as one might feel before the apparition of something ghostly or uncanny. it was intolerable. she must shake off such mental cowering, and forced herself to turn towards the window through which mother cary's light could be seen, thinking the friendly beacon would reassure her.
then, although her heart seemed for an instant to stop beating, she sprang up; but her knees refused their burden, and she sank again into her chair, leaning forward with straining eyes, clutching its arms; for the light on the mountain was blotted out by a hideous thing, a white face set in shaggy hair, a sneering face, a face where drink and hate and fear had set their marks. as she sprang up and sank down again the wicked glare of hate turned into a more frightful leer; then the creature raised a horrid fist, shook it towards her—and vanished into the night.
it was eleanor who came running downstairs at the cry she tried to choke back.
the two kept watch through the night, and morning found rosamund shaken and feverish, but firmly determined to lay aside her dread, and at all hazards to keep her friends in the city in ignorance of it.
she shuddered at the thought of what the newspapers would make of it, and of cecilia's raging, and pendleton's taunting comments. she and eleanor, in the reassuring daylight, tried to laugh away each other's fears; and both agreed that they would not be frightened away from the brown house; they agreed, too, that ogilvie must not know.
but to keep the doctor in ignorance of what had happened was not so easy as rosamund had hoped. he had many opportunities of hearing rumors that did not reach her; if he had not constantly persisted in his warnings it was not because he no longer feared for her, but because it seemed best to watch, rather than to warn. he went to the cottage every day on one pretext or another; if it was not fear alone which took him there, he admitted to himself no other reason.
it was not altogether because he was too busy with his mountaineer patients, as mother cary had told rosamund, that he had remained among them; now and again he had consulted his friends, and his vigorous enjoyment of the days as they passed also told unmistakably of his recovery; but another year of mountain practice would doubly insure his safety in going back to his investigations in the confinement of the laboratory. meanwhile he had thrown himself into the work here with ardor, as he must always do with work or play; but now just at the time when he was beginning to think of his return to the city there came into his thoughts an influence as disturbing as it was novel.
early in the summer one of his classmates, the doctor blake who was mother cary's old friend, had come from the city for a visit of a day or two, and to him rosamund's name was unmistakably well known. he had seen her, too, in town. there could be no mistake; she was the only daughter of old randall, the "king" of georgia pine. it seemed to blake a wild freak which kept such a girl here in the mountains, away from her kind, a freak to be distrusted. he watched ogilvie rather keenly when they met rosamund at mother cary's that afternoon, but it was evident that ogilvie was master of whatever emotions he might have towards her. as a matter of fact, her money counted no more in his estimate of her than a scar on her cheek, or a strand of gray hair, or an ignorance of german would have counted. he knew himself for a man, and more; he knew, as they who possess the embryo of greatness never fail to know, that he had that to offer which all her money could not buy; the belief that she, too, knew as much was fast becoming the essence of life for him.
the thought of her filled his days and half his nights. her swinging step along the frozen roads, the tired child nestling in her arms, the cadence of her voice as she greeted him, the look of shy withdrawal that he sometimes surprised in her eyes—all would set him inwardly trembling, longing, worshiping. yet love was new to him, and he feared; inexperience had left him with nothing for comparison. he could not know how far to venture. masculine instinct warned him to display to her the brightest plumage of his mind and heart, and their walks and drives together were full of talk and intimate silences; but of that which was uppermost in his desire he feared to speak.
yet his fears no less than his love made him keen to notice every shade of expression on her face, and on the morning after her fright at the hideous vision at the window he saw at once that something was amiss. he had been over the mountain earlier in the day to set a man's broken arm, and several things had made him more than usually suspicious that the underworld of the woods was stirring uneasily. a storm of some sort was certainly in the air; the people showed themselves distrustful even of him, and the very children shrank into reserve at his approach.
rosamund had walked across the valley to mother cary's, to confide to her the strange disturbing happening of the night; then she had gone home again, hoping for that day to escape ogilvie's keen eyes. the tale had been most disquieting to the old woman, and when rosamund had gone, she sent pap to the main road to hail the doctor as he passed. she had been bound to secrecy, but she could at least, without breach of trust, send him a message.
"you tell doctor ogilvie that i say when wolves are out, lambs 're in danger. jest that; don't say another word. ef he's all i take him for he'll understand."
pap repeated the message word for word and the two men looked into each other's eyes for a moment, in a look that told far more than the message; then ogilvie whipped up white rosy with unprecedented emphasis, and the old mare gallantly responded, as if she knew that an emergency prompted the unaccustomed touch. ogilvie was sure that one glance at rosamund's face would tell him whether she were the lamb mother cary had in mind; and the girl's pale cheeks, that flushed so treacherously when he entered the brown cottage, disclosed the secret she would have kept. but mother cary must not be betrayed, and he greeted her as if he suspected nothing.
"i saw aunt sue at the clothesline," he said, "so i used the doctor's privilege and just walked in! tell me if i'm in the way."
she turned a large chair towards the blaze in the fireplace and moved her own a little back, as if to credit her bright color to the heat of the flames.
"doctors are always welcome," she said.
but that did not satisfy him, and with characteristic directness he pursued the question. "am i not welcome as a friend, too?"
she bent forward to reach the tongs, and lifted a glowing ember. "you're welcome in every r?le! but you are very formal to-day, aren't you, in spite of your just walking in? why?"
she was always mistress of herself when she could tease. ogilvie, however, would not respond to her levity.
"because doctors may prescribe, and friends may advise; as it happens, i want to do both!"
she sat up very straight and looked at him mockingly. "dear me!" she said, in the dry tone which usually provoked all his scotch combativeness.
but to-day that, also, he ignored.
"where are mrs. reeves and the children?" he asked.
"eleanor has taken tim on a hunt for nuts, and yetta is at her lessons."
he frowned. "which way have they gone?"
"i have not the least idea."
"have you seen grace lately?"
"i have not," she replied. "pray don't mind asking about anything you want to know!"
he would not notice her flippancy even to frown. "because," he said, "she is not at her own house, nor the allens', and she has not been to the carys' since yesterday morning; if she has not been here either, there is only one thing possible—or at all likely——"
at last rosamund became serious; if grace had gone into the woods it could, indeed, mean but one thing. "oh, dear!" she cried. "does that mean—do you think?—that joe is out again?"
the doctor nodded. "and has been for several days. the trouble is coming to a head somewhere. i wish i knew where. the very air is full of it, and these people are so mysterious that even i cannot get anything definite. pa cary says they all believe there are spies about."
at the word, rosamund's hand went to her throat, and her lips paled. "oh, then——" she began, and stopped.
ogilvie leaned forward and laid his hand on the arm of her chair.
"then?" he repeated, looking closely at her.
his intentness forced the tale from her. he listened without interrupting, and when she had finished, sat for a while in deep meditation.
at last he drew a long breath, rose, took a turn or two about the little room, and came and stood before her, frowning.
"you shall not stay here," he said.
of all words he could have chosen none more unfortunate. a tone of fear, a phrase of hidden tenderness, even an appeal to her own sense of the futility of braving the hovering danger—almost anything but the words and tone he used would have induced her to submit to his wishes; but this imperative command of words and voice touched off some quick, foolish spark within her.
"ah, but that is precisely what i am going to do," she calmly declared. "they will find out sooner or later that i am not a spy. i shall remain here until they do."
unconsciously, as once before, her name escaped him. "rosamund," he cried, "i cannot stand it! i cannot bear to think of your being in danger!"
if she heard, she gave no sign of it. "i do not believe there is the slightest danger," she said, "but what if there is? i have taken up my life here; there are always difficulties to be overcome whenever one wants really to do anything. why should i run away from my share of them?"
he had turned toward the fire, his arm resting upon the mantel-shelf, and his forehead upon his clenched hand.
"i wish i could make you understand how it is with me," she went on. "i have chosen, deliberately chosen, to take this way of living. i have come here to stay, for a time anyway. you would tell me, i know, that i could have the same little family somewhere else. i know i could; but i am not staying only on their account, any more than i am for a mere whim of my own. the place is more my home than any i have ever known since i was a little girl. i love it, and i see so many things to be done, things i can do; and i want to do them. i don't always know how, but i am learning. these mountain people are distrustful of everyone; but all wild creatures can be tamed, if one has patience. when they have learned to trust me i can help them. i am not going to be driven away. besides, when all else is said, i don't see the need of it!"
"you had warning last night. whoever that ruffian was, his coming here meant no good to you."
for a while she was silent, and when she spoke he looked at her, and saw that there were tears in her eyes.
"oh, i cannot argue it out," she cried. "of course, you can array fact upon fact to prove me wrong and foolish. oh—doctor ogilvie, be fair! credit me with a purpose! i have never before had a chance to go on in a simple, clearly defined line of action. it would not seem very much to most people, i suppose—merely to stay here, to live in this little cottage with eleanor and the children. but it's the only real life i've ever known, as far as i can remember. i was dropped into this place by accident, and i found something to do. what is more, i found myself among real people. it is not much—but to live my own life—that is what i want!" in her emotion she stood before him, straight and purposeful. "won't you give me credit for the strength of it, and not believe me merely willful?"
he was deeply moved; she laid her own in the hand he held out to her. "i will credit you with everything that is brave and good," he said, with utmost seriousness. "if you are really determined to remain here, i will not interfere. if this is what you choose, i will try to believe it is the best thing for you—the only thing."
her earnestness had fanned in his heart an altar-flame of worship and new faith; its glow shone in his eyes, and her face paled under his look. in the tenseness of the moment there could be no speech, but it seemed as if their souls sped toward each other on a bridge of understanding. they were hushed before the vision of great elemental truth; and although later they came to believe that they had been deluded, that vision of truth remained as having passed between them, a revelation and a message.
afterward, in the hours when doubt and pain and loneliness were her companions, she often wondered what the outcome might have been; but she could only wonder, for at the highest moment of their silent communion there sounded a well-remembered view-halloo, and a quick turn of the head showed the flash of a big red car that was stopping before the house.
with a low cry she drew away the hand that had been held in his, turned from him, and for an instant hid her face in her two palms, needing the moment to recall her soul from the heights. when she turned at the sound of steps upon the veranda ogilvie was gone; she stooped to pick up his worn brown cap, left unheeded upon the hearth, put it quickly into a drawer, and turned the key in the lock.
