THAT night Rome passed in the woods,with his rifle,in a bed of leaves.Before daybreak he had built a fire in a deep ravine to cook his breakfast,and had scattered the embers that the smoke should give no sign.
The sun was high when he crept cautiously in sight of the Lewallen cabin.It was much like his own home on the other shore,except that the house,closed and desolate,was standing,and the bees were busy.At the corner of the kitchen a rusty axe was sticking in a half-cut piece of timber,and on the porch was a heap of kindling and fire wood-the last work old Jasper and his son had ever done.In the Lewallens'garden,also,two graves were fresh;and the spirit of neglect and ruin overhung the place.
All the morning he waited in the edge of the laurel,peering down the path,watching the clouds race with their shadows over the mountains,or pacing to and fro in his covert of leaves and flowers.
He began to fear at last that she was not coming,that she was ill,and once he started down the mountain toward Steve Brayton's cabin.The swift descent brought him to his senses,and he stopped half-way,and climbed back again to his hiding-place.
What he was doing,what he meant to do,he hardly knew.Mid-day passed;the sun fell toward the mountains,and once more came the fierce impulse to see her,even though he must stalk into the Brayton cabin.Again,half-crazed,he started impetuously through the brush,and shrank back,and stood quiet.A little noise down the path had reached his ear.In a moment he could hear slow foot-falls,and the figure of the girl parted the pink-and-white laurel blossoms,which fell in a shower about her when she brushed through them.She passed quite near him,walking slowly,and stopped for a moment to rest against a pillar of the porch.She was very pale;her face was traced deep with suffering,and she was,as old Gabe said,much changed.Then she went on toward the garden,stepping with an effort over the low fence,and leaned as if weak and tired against the apple-tree,the boughs of which shaded the two graves at her feet.For a few moments she stood there,listless,and Rome watched her with hungry eyes,at a loss what to do.She moved presently,and walked quite around the graves without looking at them;then came back past him,and,seating herself in the porch,turned her face to the river.The sun lighted her hair,and in the sunken,upturned eyes Rome saw the shimmer of tears.
"Marthy!"He couldn't help it-the thick,low cry broke like a groan from his lips,and the girl was on her feet,facing him.She did not know the voice,nor the shaggy,half-wild figure in the shade of the laurel;and she started back as if to run;but seeing that the man did not mean to harm her,she stopped,looking for a moment with wonder and even with quick pity at the hunted face with its white appeal.Then a sudden spasm caught her throat,and left her body rigid,her hands shut,and her eyes dry and hard-she knew him.Aslow pallor drove the flush of surprise from her face,and her lips moved once,but there was not even a whisper from them.Rome raised one hand before his face,as though to ward off something."Don't look at mc that way,Marthy-my God,don't!I didn't kill him.
I sw'ar it!I give him a chance fer his life.I know,I know-Steve says he didn't.Thar was only us two.Hit looks ag'in'me;but Ihain't killed one nur t'other.I let 'em both go.Y'u don't believe me?
"He went swiftly toward her,his gun outstretched.Hyeh,gal!Iheerd ye swore ag'in'me out thar in the gyarden-'lowin'that you was goin'to hunt me down yerself if the soldiers didn't.Hyeh's yer chance!
The girl shrank away from him,too startled to take the weapon;and he leaned it against her,and stood away,with his hands behind him.
