Part 1 — CHAPTER X THE DISCOVERY

It was growing dusk as Silas went forth into his rickyard, and there was a chill in the air which might turn to frost in the early morning. He moved slowly, with heavy feet. He was vexed with himself for having lost his temper with Peter who, he fully realized, had had no intention of being offensive. What he had said had been outrageous of course and not to be tolerated for a moment, but only a fool would have tackled the matter as he had. They were probably laughing at him now, Peter and Mary, calling him all those facetious names which are usually bestowed upon a man in love. He clenched his hands at the thought. Wasn't it enough to suffer hideously, as he was suffering, without being laughed at?

It was five days since he had seen her, except for just one glimpse that morning in church of her pure face outlined against the old stone pillar by which she always sat. For five long days he had resolutely starved himself of the sight of her, and during that time he had hardly slept at all. Night after night he had lain staring into the dark with her image before him, ineradicable, almost as if seared upon his brain.

He had said that he would be her friend, but he had not been able to bring himself even to attempt to play the rôle. He wanted her so desperately, so unspeakably, for his own. The thought of that other man who had won her heart and left her was torture to him. It set him on fire. He could not cope with it.

There was another thought behind which was even more intolerable. This was a spectre that came to him only in the night watches. By day he had the strength of will to fling it from him. But at night, like a poisonous serpent it crept upon him, wound its foul coils about him, held him in agonized helplessness. That gate marked Private through which he might not pass, what was it that lay beyond? Who was it that sheltered there? Over and over again he turned from the problem, only to be faced with it from another angle. Why had she cared so terribly when he had suggested the possibility of discovering the truth? If she were not concerned with it, why should she mind? She had said that he would not find the other man behind that gate, but was that literally the truth? His soul revolted at the doubt, but was it wholly without justification. Why had she been so urgent that he should not seek to know?

And then would come the vision of her, as he had seen it that morning—pure, steadfast, yet withal so sweetly human, and he would break free, casting the evil thing away. Could anyone with eyes like hers have any guilty secret to hide? It was monstrous, incredible, the evil phantom of his own diseased imagination. If he could only sleep, he would be able to trample it underfoot for good and all.

But sleep would not come to him. It eluded him always, often at the last moment when blessed unconsciousness seemed to be almost at hand. At such times it was not the vision of Bobby that brought him back; but that of Rosemary with her vivid laughing beauty, seeming to taunt him, seeming to block the way. There were times when he almost hated her, times when he felt that he could have seized her between his hands and hurled her from his path. But always she eluded him, escaping as it were by a hair's breadth, and always she came again just out of reach to mock his fever.

And now he had seen them both again, Roberta and Rosemary, side by side in church, and it seemed to him that the fever had leapt well-nigh to madness. He could not have rested indoors even had those few ill-advised remarks of Peter's not driven him forth. What the devil did Peter mean by his insinuations? Whose vile tongue had first dared to link slander with Miss Roberta's name? But no! Peter had not given voice to slander in his hearing. He had only spoken lightly of the woman whom Silas worshipped. Possibly he had been overready to translate those careless remarks into calumny—such calumny as Peter had never dreamed of uttering. In any case he had been a fool to take him seriously, and had made a laughing-stock of himself to no purpose.

He dug his heel into the ground as he reached the gate that led from the rickyard into the lane. Yes, he was a fool—a fool. All the sense he had ever had seemed to have gone under during the past few days, swamped by this obsession, this mad longing for the unattainable. None but a fool would have gone to church that morning and risked awaking this fiery torment that was like an unslakable thirst within him. It had been like a drain of moisture to parched lips, renewing the anguish a thousand-fold, turning that which had been just endurable into a nightmare of pain.

He tramped through the gate and shut it behind him. Then he stood still in the lane, in the mist-laden quiet of the falling night, and took himself to task. "I've got to do something," he said. "I can't stand much more of this."

A faint, throbbing sound came to him through the stillness, but he did not heed it. His misery was too acute to be penetrated by outward things. Had he stood in a raging storm just then, he would hardly have been aware of it.

Yet something must have reached him, for after the passage of many heavy seconds he turned to walk down the lane. Nero had followed him out and accompanied him closely along the narrow way; but he had no thought for Nero. Scarcely did he know that he was moving in the direction of Little Staple. He might have been walking through one of those endless mazes of trouble in which his spirit wandered throughout the night.

He came to the junction of the lanes, and here something made him pause. Then with a sudden pang of bitter self-contempt he awoke to his surroundings. What was the good of going to her? Had he not suffered enough?

With an almost violent movement he swung aside to the stile that led into his fields and crossed it, turning his back upon the track that would have led him to her.

Drearily he trudged up the hill through the wet grass, past the big barn where the bulk of his winter fodder was stored, on to the open down behind Little Staple, above the field where Bobby kept her cows.

Nearing the summit of the hill, there came again to him that throbbing sound which he had not heeded, and then suddenly through the quiet, clear as a bell, came a girl's voice.

"Steady, Leader! Steady, old fellow! You mustn't have a swollen hock in the morning, or there'll be trouble. Come along, old Hoss! One more straight gallop and good night!"

Silas stopped as if a thunderbolt had arrested him. "Damnation!" he said.

All the blood in his body seemed to go to his head. Everything about him went red. In that moment an anger that amounted almost to a lust for murder took possession of him. He quivered all over with the fury of it, quivered and waited like an animal straining on the leash.

The throbbing sound had resolved itself into the definite thudding of hoofs. There was a flat stretch along the top of the hill, and a horse was cantering over it towards him. He knew the tread of those hoofs. It was his own horse, Leader, who had gone lame and been turned out to grass some weeks before. He had had his suspicions for a long time that Leader was not being left to the life of tranquillity which had been prescribed for him. Old Roper at Bode had hinted as much, and suspected mischievous urchins of mounting the animal; but Silas knew better. Silas knew that old Roper had not had time to ride with Rosemary lately, and he drew his own conclusions—conclusions which Mary had not been able to refute. Rosemary loved a gallop—a headlong, break-neck gallop—as she loved nothing else on earth. And as the pace of the cantering animal above him quickened, Silas realized that he had caught the culprit red-handed.

He turned and took a slanting course up the rise to the corner above the barn where he knew that she must draw rein. He went hard, with a wild violence of effort that suited his mood. Not often in his life had so fierce a tempest of wrath raged within him. It burned like a furnace, and he was not conscious of any physical effort. Everything he did seemed part of that tremendous storm, just as those galloping hoofs seemed a part. It was as if they hammered on his brain.

Then, almost before he knew it, he had reached the top, and was standing against the railing as Leader dashed up. The animal saw him first, and swerved. His rider kept her seat with an effort and a laughing protest. She had no saddle and her only bridle was the rope of his halter. She carried a riding-switch, however, and she struck the horse lightly with it by way of admonition.

"What did you do that for, Leader? Do you want to throw me, you old rotter?"

The fact that she had not been thrown was one which testified to the excellence of her horsemanship. Even Silas conceded that as he strode forward into the open.

She recognized him in a moment, and made Leader back before him, pawing the ground like a circus-horse. "Hullo!" she said coolly. "You, is it?"

"Yes, me!" said Silas between his teeth. "What are you doing on that horse? Don't you know he's lame?"

"He isn't when I ride him," said Rosemary, unabashed. "He doesn't mind featherweights, do you, Leader?"

As Leader stood about seventeen hands high, it seemed an unnecessary question; but it failed to propitiate the incensed Silas.

He took one more gigantic stride and seized the animal by the forelock. "Get down, do you hear?" he said thickly. "I'll have no more of these damned tricks. Get down!"

Rosemary jerked the horse back again in angry astonishment. That anyone—even the redoubtable Silas—could fail to appreciate her prowess seemed incredible. Clinging on with her knees, she raised her riding-whip, "Let go! Let go!" she cried furiously. "I've done no harm to you or Leader either. I won't get down just because you say so!"

"You will!" said Silas.

He kept his grip upon the horse, and Leader, recognizing him, tried to submit. But the girl on his back suddenly turned into a little tornado of fury which upset his nervous balance. He found himself a bone of contention and began to dance and rear.

She clung to her perch like a limpet, but it was only a matter of seconds ere she realized that the man who hung on so stubbornly to Leader's head was master of the situation. When that knowledge came to her, the last shred of her self-control evaporated. She leaned well forward over Leader's neck and brought her riding-switch down straight and hard upon his grim, uplifted face.

She had the satisfaction of hearing him exclaim, but there all cause for elation ended. For—what happened she never quite knew—there followed such a turmoil of movement that she found it impossible to maintain her balance. She felt herself slipping, clutched desperately at Leader's mane; and then she had lost all hold and seemed to be suspended in mid-air in the grip of a giant.

The next thing she knew was the squelch of Leader's hoofs as he blundered away and the sense of finding her feet on the muddy ground after a breathless struggle to save herself from falling.

When she was able finally to take a steadier view of things, she discovered that the whirlwind had passed, and she was standing face to face with Silas in the gloaming. Her blouse was torn at the neck and her breeches were covered with mud. She realized that he had just set her on her feet after holding her dangling as though she had been a kitten, and very bitterly she resented the fact. She felt like a boy caught raiding an orchard.

She had dropped her switch in the mêlée, and after a hasty glance around she discovered it in Silas's grasp.

"Give that to me!" she commanded, pointing.

He answered her in a voice that seemed to come from the very depths of him, like the growl of an angry beast.

"Yes, I will give it to you, you little varmint! You've asked for it, and you shall have it!"

The deadly intention with which he uttered the words was almost as forcible as a blow in itself. Rosemary recoiled in spite of herself, then gamely she returned to the attack.

"Oh, you think you'll threaten me, do you?" she said. "It's the sort of thing one would expect from a man like you. But if you think I'm afraid of you, you're jolly well mistaken. Hand over that whip and don't waste my time!"

"Your—time!" said Silas. For the moment her effrontery nearly bore him backwards. Then red rage gained the upper hand again. "You think I'm to be trampled on like that, do you?" he said. "Think you can trespass on my field, ride my horse, and hit me over the head, all for nothing! A damned little baggage like you that has never done anything to justify existence yet!"

He took a furious step forward, but Rosemary did not give ground a second time. She confronted him with a courage that scorned retreat.

"I shouldn't have hit you if you hadn't interfered with me," she said. "As to trespassing in your field, that's rot! We all do it. As to riding your horse, I challenge you to prove that I have done him any harm. Now—give me my property and I'll go!"

She stretched out her hand for it and even grasped it, but in a second he had wrenched it from her. He would have thrust it behind him, but she sprang at him like a little panther in a futile effort to snatch it from him.

It was childish and undignified, and in that moment she lost all that she had gained. For he gripped her extended arm and flung her round, holding her for chastisement as if she had been a boy.

"You've asked for it!" he said again. "You shall have it!"

She made a frantic struggle, but her feet slipped on the wet earth and she lost her balance. She went down on her face, still struggling, and as he pulled her up again the blouse she wore which was already torn ripped like a rag, exposing her white shoulders and bosom, and the dainty cambric underwear which Bobby always insisted upon for her darling.

It was a sight that brought Silas very suddenly to a stop. It was as if he turned a mental somersault. Hitherto he had regarded Rosemary as a being without sex, but more nearly resembling the male than the female. Now, abruptly, he realized his mistake. He drew in his breath hissing between his teeth, and in that breath his violence was quenched, as though water had been flung upon fire. He let her go.

"You get along home!" he commanded gruffly. "And don't come this way again!"

She drew away from him, burningly aware of the fact to which she owed her deliverance, shaking also from head to foot and unable to control herself.

Silas thrust out the switch to her. His look avoided hers. "Here you are! Now run along home!" he said. Then, abruptly, "Damn! It's raining. Have this!"

He dragged off his coat and held it out for her. But she stood, still trembling, making no effort to move.

"Come on!" said Silas. He was still angry, but—oddly—not with her. He took her arms, first one then the other, and pushed them into the sleeves of his coat. Then he wrapped it over her bare shoulders and buttoned it in front.

"There!" he said. "That better?"

The switch had fallen from her nerveless fingers. He picked it up and gave it to her again. An urgent desire to put an end to the situation had come upon him. He had never in his life before felt at so hopeless a disadvantage.

That Rosemary could be feeling the same did not occur to him, and when her wild trembling abruptly ended in a burst of tears he was both shocked and perplexed.

"Oh, damn it!" he said. "You're not hurt. What is it! What's the matter?"

Then, as she failed to tell him but continued to sob forlornly like a lost child, desperation came upon him.

He bent and took her, almost seized her, into his arms, and started down the hill with her through the darkness and falling rain.

She uttered a small cry at his action, but made no fight for freedom. And so he bore her, weeping, to the stile, which he crossed in one great stride, and then up the sodden track from which he had turned in his misery a sort time before, Nero plodding patiently behind him as though he saw nothing extraordinary in his master's conduct.

When they reached the open space and the duck-pond in front of Little Staple, Rosemary spoke for the first time, in a very small voice.

"May I use your hanky? I've lost mine."

"All right," said Silas. "You'll find it in the pocket."

He pushed open the gate and went up the flagged path. "Please wait a minute!" said Rosemary.

But the door opened while she was speaking, and Bobby's figure appeared on the threshold, outlined against the lamplight behind.

"Oh, Rosemary—my darling!" she said, and ran out to meet them.

"It's all right," said Silas. "She isn't hurt."

He made as if he would have transferred his burden to her, then, realizing that Rosemary weighed more than an ordinary infant, straightened again and carried her into the house himself.

"Bring her into the parlour!" said Bobby. "What has happened? Rosemary—darling—you are crying!"

"No, I'm not," said Rosemary, with a sob. "I'm—I'm quite all right. Please put me down now!" to Silas. "Don't let's make a fuss!"

He placed her solemnly upon the sofa, but she was off it in a moment and laughing rather desperately at Bobby's distress. "I'm quite all right, dear Aunt Bobby. Can't you see? I've—I've been riding Leader, and—and——"

"I pulled her off," said Silas.

"No, he didn't!" Fiercely she interrupted. "I fell off, and he picked me up. It—it was jolly decent of him. I was rather dazed just at first, and he brought me home. That's all, dear Aunt Bobby! Don't make a fuss! I'm really quite all right. Won't you—won't you ask Mr. Hickory to sit down a minute while I change and dry his coat?"

"Of course sit down!" said Bobby, turning to him. "But you—" with a start—"you have had an accident, too!"

There was a red weal straight across Silas's face, and one eye was nearly closed.

Rosemary spoke with resolution. "That was my doing, Aunt Bobby. I struck him with my whip."

"No, she didn't!" said Silas flatly. "It was the horse she was hitting. He reared, and everyone knows it's the only thing to do. I got in the way. It was my own fault."

He made the statement with a square insistence that would not be gainsaid. Bobby looked, bewildered, from one to the other.

"You both look rather the worse for wear," she said finally. "Rosemary, it was very wrong of you to ride Leader at all. You had better go straight to bed as a punishment. Yes, I mean it," as Rosemary opened her mouth to protest. "You deserve a far worse penalty than that, and I may decide to give you one. I will think it over. But go now, dear! Go at once!"

Her voice of quiet authority took effect. Rosemary turned to obey; but at the door she paused, stood a moment, then came back to Silas with extended hand.

"Good night, Mr. Hickory!" she said.

He shook hands with her, standing in his shirt-sleeves on the hearth-rug. The smile that lighted his face at her action was that rare smile which Mary so loved to see.

"Good night, Miss Rosemary!" he said. "Don't bother to dry the coat! It'll only get wet again going home."

"Right ho!" said Rosemary.

She went out, pulling the door after her. A moment later she thrust a bare arm into the room with the coat held out. "Here you are!" she said. "And many thanks!"

It was Bobby who took it from her with a murmured rebuke, and a moment later they heard her scamper up the oak stairs like a boy released from school.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Bobby, half-vexed, half-laughing, and wholly ill at ease. "What shall I do with her?"

"I'll tell you one thing you'll have to do pretty soon," said Silas, taking his coat from her and putting it on.

"What's that?" said Bobby anxiously.

He answered with uncompromising bluntness. "Stop treating her like a child that doesn't know any better, and treat her as a reasonable being who does."

"But don't I?" said Bobby in distress. "I thought—I hoped—"

Silas interrupted with an unexpected laugh. "I know. But it's no good. I've had the bump of my life to-day, but it was my fault—not hers. I thought she was just a mischievous child. She isn't. She's a woman."

Bobby looked at him almost in consternation. "Oh, do you think so? She's not eighteen yet."

"And you treat her as if she were eight," said Silas. "I'm only telling you for your information. Don't look so shocked!"

"But only the other day—only the other day," protested Bobby, "you told me she was a spoilt child!"

"Did I?" said Silas. "Well, I was wrong. I should let her come down to supper if I were you. It'll be pleasanter for you both."

"You think she is too old to be punished any longer?" said Bobby, and in her eyes was the yearning look of the woman who realizes that her treasure is exclusively her own no more.

Silas saw it and a species of rather stern pity shone in his own eyes for a moment. "I think," he said quietly, "that life will probably take on that job for you, and nothing else will make any difference." He held out his hand. "Good-bye! I'm going now."

"Must you go?" said Bobby, still rather flustered. "Won't you stay for a little? I haven't seen anything of you for a long time."

"Exactly a week to-morrow," said Silas.

"Oh, is it?" The colour rushed up over her face. "I thought it was longer." She broke off, paused to master her sudden embarrassment, and then spoke more collectedly. "I am sure your eye is hurting you. Won't you let me do something for it?"

"No, thanks," said Silas. "I can't feel it at all. Was there anything you wanted to talk to me about? Shall I—" he looked at her with abrupt directness—"shall I come round in the morning?"

Bobby hesitated, then with a faint smile yielded. "One of the pigs isn't very well. I don't think it's anything really serious. But perhaps if you could spare a few minutes in the morning— It isn't asking too much of you, is it?" she said, with sudden compunction. "Don't come if you are busy in the other direction! I can get Mr. Roper."

"I am never busy in the other direction," said Silas squarely. "I'll be round about eleven. Don't get Roper till I've been! Good-bye!"

His big hand enveloped hers for a moment, and something like a sigh of relief escaped them both. The old footing was re-established. He went away exactly as he had always gone—without ceremony—a reliable friend who would return.

"Thank goodness for that!" murmured Bobby to herself as she heard the front-door close.

Yes, it had certainly seemed a very long time.