Detective and mystery stories; Mackinac Island (Mich. : Island) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
height, and then withdrawn them, leaving no trace behind.
"We will go up the path, and join Anne," said Père Michaux; "we will not
wait longer for Rast. He can find us there as well as here."
They started; but after a few steps the priest's foot slipped on a
rolling stone; he lost his balance, and half fell, half sank to the
ground, fortunately directly along the narrow path, and not beyond its
edge. When he attempted to rise, he found that his ankle was strained:
he was a large man, and he had fallen heavily. Tita bound up the place
as well as she could with his handkerchief and her own formed into a
bandage; but at best he could only hobble. He might manage to go down
the path to the house, but evidently he could not clamber further. Again
they waited for Rast, but he did not come. They called, but no one
answered. They were perched half way up the white cliff, where no one
could hear them. Tita's whole face had grown darkly red, as though the
blood would burst through; she looked copper-colored, and her expression
was full of repressed impatience. Père Michaux, himself more perturbed
and angry than so slight a hurt would seem to justify, happening to look
at her, was seized with an idea. "Run up, child," he said, "and join
Anne; do not leave her again. Tell her what has happened, and--mind what
I say exactly, Tita--do not leave her."
Tita was off up the path and out of sight in an instant. The old priest,
left to himself, hobbled slowly down the hill and across the garden to
the Agency, not without some difficulty and pain.
Anne had gone up to the heights, and seated herself in good faith to
wait for the others; Rast had gone after the dog in good faith, and not
to seek Anne. Yet they met, and the others did not find them.
The dog ran away, and Rast after him, down the north path for a mile,
and then straight into the fir wood, where nothing can be caught, man or
dog. So Rast came back, not by the path, but through the forest, and
found Anne sitting in a little nook among the arbor vitæ, where there
was an opening, like a green window, overlooking the harbor. He sat down
by her side, and fanned himself with his hat for a few moments, and then
he went down to find Père Michaux and bring him up thither. But by that
time the priest had reached the house, and he returned, saying that he
saw by the foot-marks that the old man had for some reason gone down the
hill again, leaving them to watch their last sunset alone. He threw
himself down by Anne's side, and together they looked through their
green casement.
"The steamer has turned the point," said Anne.
They both watched it in silence. They heard the evening gun from the
fort.
"I shall never forgive myself, Rast, for having let you go before so
carelessly. When the gale began that night, every blast seemed to go
through my heart."
"I thought you did not appear to care much," said Rast, in an aggrieved
tone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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