The child laughed gleefully. He sat for a moment on the big, trembling knee; then, seeing a butterfly fluttering over a dungheap, he sprang down and ran after it. It evaded the outstretched straw hat, and Hoag saw him climb over the fence and dart across the meadow. Away the lithe creature bounded--as free as the balmy breeze upon which he seemed to ride as easily as the thing he was pursuing. Hoag groaned. His despair held him like a vise. On every side hung the black curtains of his doom. All nature seemed to mock him. Birds were singing in the near-by woods. On the sloping roof of the bam blue and white pigeons were strutting and cooing. On the lawn a stately peacock with plumage spread strode majestically across the grass. To avoid meeting Jack again, Hoag passed out at the gate, and went into the wood, which, cool, dank, and somber, stretched away toward the mountain. Deeper and deeper he got in the shade of the great trees and leaning cliffs and boulders till he was quite out of sight or hearing of the house. The solitude and stillness of the spot strangely appealed to him. For the first time in many days he had a touch of calmness. The thought came to him that, if such a thing as prayer were reasonable at all, a spot like this would make it effective. Suddenly, as he stood looking at a cliff in front of him, he fancied that the leaves and branches of an overhanging bush were stirring. To make sure, he stared fixedly at it, and then he saw a black face emerge, a face that was grimly set in satisfaction. Was he asleep, and was this one of the numerous fancies which had haunted him in delirium? Yes, for the face was gone, the leaves of the bush were still. And yet, was it gone? Surely there was renewed activity about the bush which was not visible in its fellows. What was it that was slowly emerging from the branches like a bar of polished steel? The sunlight struck it and it flashed and blazed steadily. The bush swayed downward and then held firm. There was a puff of blue smoke. Hoag felt a stinging sensation over the region of his heart. Everything grew black. He felt himself falling. He heard an exultant laugh, which seemed to recede in the distance. CHAPTER XXIX |IT was a few weeks after Hoag's burial. Ethel had been for a walk and was nearing home. At the side of the road stood a sordid log cabin, one of the worst of its class. In the low doorway leaned a woman with a baby in her arms. She was under twenty-five years of age, and yet from her tattered dress, worn-out shoes, scant hair, and wan, wearied face she might have passed as the grandmother of her four or five little children playing about the door-step.