He was never without the strange feeling that the body of Edward
Crown might still be lying at the foot of the hidden steps.
Now he approached the place with a new and deeper interest.
Strangely enough, it had been shorn within the hour of much that
was grim and terrifying. It was no longer a house to inspire dread
and uneasiness. Two young and venturesome spirits had invaded its
silent precincts, there to dream in safety and seclusion, unhaunted
by its spectres, undisturbed by its secret. In one of its darkened
rooms they had set up a "workshop," a "playhouse." A glaze came
over his eyes as he wondered what had transpired in that room during
the surreptitious six weeks' tenancy. Had David Strong kissed her?
Had she kissed David Strong? Were promises made and futures planned?
His throat was tight with the swell of jealousy.
He stopped at the gate. After a moment's hesitation he lifted
the rusty latch and jerked the gate open far enough to allow him
to squeeze through. Then he paused to sweep the landscape with
an inquiring eye. Far up the pike a load of fodder moved slowly.
There were cattle in the pasture near at hand, but no human being
to observe his actions. In a distant upland field men were moving
among a multitude of corn-shocks, trailing the horses and wagons
that belonged to Alix Crown. Crows cawed in the trees on the eastern
edge of the strip of meadowland, and on high soared two or three
big birds,--hawks or buzzards, he knew not which,--circling slowly
in the arc of the steel blue sky.
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