Dark Hollow | Page 3

this hour, when through
accident--or was it treachery--the barrier to knowledge was down and
the question of years seemed at last upon the point of being answered.

II
WAS HE LIVING?--WAS HE DEAD?
Meantime, a fussy, talkative man was endeavouring to impress the
rapidly collecting crowd with the advisability of their entering all
together and approaching the judge in a body.
"We can say that we felt it to be our dooty to follow this woman in," he
argued. "We don't know who she is, or what her errand is. She may
mean harm; I've heard of such things, and are we goin' to see the judge
in danger and do nothin'?"
"Oh, the woman's all right," spoke up another voice. "She has a child
with her. Didn't you say she had a child with her, Miss Weeks?"

"Yes, and--"
"Tell us the whole story, Miss Weeks. Some of us haven't heard it.
Then if it seems our duty as his neighbours and well-wishers to go in,
we'll just go in."
The little woman towards whom this appeal--or shall I say command-
-was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but
immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half
dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to
shirk publicity, for all her retiring manners and meekness of
disposition.
It was to this effect:
She was sitting in her front window sewing. (Everybody knew that this
window faced the end of the lane in which they were then standing.)
The blinds were drawn but not quite, being held in just the desired
position by a string. Naturally, she could see out without being very
plainly seen herself; and quite naturally, too, since she had watched the
same proceeding for years, she had her eyes on this gate when Bela,
prompt to the minute as he always was, issued forth on his morning
walk to town for the day's supplies.
Always exact, always in a hurry--knowing as he did that the judge
would not leave for court till his return--he had never, in all the eight
years she had been sitting in that window making button- holes, shown
any hesitation in his methodical relocking of the gate and subsequent
quick departure.
But this morning he had neither borne himself with his usual spirit nor
moved with his usual promptitude. Instead of stepping at once into the
lane, he had lingered in the gate-way peering to right and left and
pushing the gravel aside with his foot in a way so unlike himself that
the moment he was out of sight, she could not help running down the
lane to see if her suspicions were correct.
And they were. Not only had he left the gate unlocked, but he had done

so purposely. The movement he had made with his foot had been done
for the purpose of pushing into place a small pebble, which, as all could
see, lay where it would best prevent the gate from closing.
What could such treachery mean, and what was her neighbourly duty
under circumstances so unparalleled? Should she go away, or stop and
take one peep just to see that there really was another and similar fence
inside of this one? She had about decided that it was only proper for her
to enter and make sure that all was right with the judge, when she
experienced that peculiar sense of being watched with which all of us
are familiar, and turning quickly round, saw a woman looking at her
from the road,--a woman all in purple even to the veil which hid her
features. A little child was with her, and the two must have stepped into
the road from behind some of the bushes, as neither of them were
anywhere in sight when she herself came running down from the
corner.
It was enough to startle any one, especially as the woman did not speak
but just stood silent and watchful till Miss Weeks in her embarrassment
began to edge away towards home in the hope that the other would
follow her example and so leave the place free for her to return and
take the little peep she had promised herself.
But before she had gone far, she realised that the other was not
following her, but was still standing in the same spot, watching her
through a veil the like of which is not to be found in Shelby, and which
in itself was enough to rouse a decent woman's suspicions.
She was so amazed at this that she stepped back and attempted to
address the stranger. But before she had got much further than a timid
and hesitating Madam, the woman, roused into action possibly by her
interference, made a