The Ordeal | Page 9

not a soul
in the hotel now!"
"That is why the light there seemed so strange."
"Besides, you know, you couldn't have seen a light for the mists."
"The mists were shifting; they rose and then closed in again. Ask
Lillian--she happened to be standing at the window there, and she said
she saw the stars for a few moments."
"Now, now, now!" exclaimed Briscoe remonstrantly, rising and coming
toward the hearth. "You two are trying to get up a panic, which means

that this delicious season in the mountains is at an end for us, and we
must go back to town. Why can't you understand that Mrs. Royston saw
the stars and perhaps a glimpse of the moon, and that then you both
saw the glimmer of their reflection on the glass of the windows at the
vacant hotel. Is there anything wonderful in that? I appeal to Julian."
"I don't know anything about the conditions here, but certainly that
explanation sounds very plausible. As to the step on the veranda, Ned
and I can take our revolvers and ascertain if anyone is prowling about."
The proposition appealed to Mrs. Briscoe, and she was grateful for the
suggestion, since it served, however illogically, to soothe her nerves.
She looked at Bayne very kindly when he came in with his host, from
the dripping densities of the fog, his face shining like marble with the
pervasive moisture, his pistol in his hand, declaring that there was
absolutely nothing astir. But indeed there was more than kind
consideration in Mrs. Briscoe's look; there was question, speculation,
an accession of interest, and he was quick to note an obvious, though
indefinable, change in Mrs. Royston's eyes as they rested upon him.
She had spent the greater portion of the evening tête-à-tête with her
hostess, the men being with the horses. He was suddenly convinced
that meantime he had been the theme of conversation between the two,
and--the thought appalled him!--Mrs. Briscoe had persuaded her friend
that to see again the woman who had enthralled him of yore was the
lure that had brought him so unexpectedly to this solitude of the
mountains. His object was a matter of business, they had been told, to
be sure, but "business" is an elastic and comprehensive term, and in
fact, in view of the convenience of mail facilities, it might well cloak a
subterfuge. Naturally, the men had not divulged to the women the
nature of the business, more especially since it concerned the
qualifications of a prospective attorney-in-fact. This interpretation of
his stay Bayne had not foreseen for one moment. His whole being
revolted against the assumption--that he should languish again at the
feet of this traitress; that he should open once more his heart to be the
target of her poisonous arrows; that he should drag his pride, his honest
self-respect, in the dust of humiliation! How could they be so dull, so
dense, as to harbor such a folly? The thought stung him with an actual

venom; it would not let him sleep; and when toward dawn he fell into a
troubled stupor, half waking, half dreaming, the torpid state was so
pervaded with her image, the sound of her voice, that he wrested
himself from it with a conscious wrench and rose betimes, doubtful if,
in the face of this preposterous persuasion, he could so command his
resolution as to continue his stay as he had planned.

III.
On descending the stairs, Bayne found the fire newly alight in the hall,
burning with that spare, clear brilliancy that the recent removal of ashes
imparts to a wood fire. All the world was still beclouded with mists,
and the windows and doors looked forth on a blank white nullity--as
inexpressive, as enigmatical, as the unwritten page of the unformulated
future itself. The present seemed eliminated; he stood as it were in the
atmosphere of other days. But whither had blown the incense of that
happy time? The lights on the shrine had dwindled to extinction! What
had befallen his strong young hopes, his faith, his inspiration, that they
had exhaled and left the air vapid and listless? He was conscious that he
was no more the man who used to await her coming, expectant, his
eyes on the door. He had now scarcely a pulse in common with that
ardent young identity he remembered as himself--his convictions of the
nobler endowments of human nature; his candid unreserve with his
fellows; his aspirations toward a fair and worthy future; his docile,
sweet, almost humble content with such share of the good things of this
life as had been vouchsafed him; his strength, as "with the strength of
ten," to labor night and day with the impetus of his sanctified impulses;
but, above all,