The letters Durgan resealed had each borne a different handwriting; they had not all come from New York. The sheets could hardly have been covered with invisible ink, having been subjected to both water and fire with no result. These, apparently, were the letters which came to the sisters with marked regularity. "These ladies are hiding," said Durgan to himself. "This is a device of their New York lawyers to save them from remark." He was unable to associate trickery with the sisters. In considering Bertha's strong repudiation of future marriage, he began to suppose that she might be already unhappily married and hiding from some villain who held her in legal control. But, in that case, why was she more at ease when riding than at home, and why did she betray fear of some danger close at hand? With nightfall the rain-cloud sank down, and the moon, floating above in an empty sky, showed clear on the mountain-tops. The rock wall above and below Durgan's camp glistened with silver facets, and the wet forest all about shimmered with reflected light. But, beautiful as was the shining island of Deer in its close converse with the queen of night, it was not so strange a sight as the upper moon-lit levels of the vast cloud which was floating a hundred feet below. Durgan went up the trail, passed the vine-hung house, and climbed the highest eminence. The cloud was composed of perpendicular layers of mist, the upper crests of which rolled in ridge over ridge before the wind--a strong surge of deepest foam. So white was each wave that only in its deep recess was there a touch of shadow. The whiteness was dazzling; the silence absolute. The adjacent mountain-tops were black islands in mid-ocean. The silence seemed a terrible thing to the cheated sense of sight. The cloud breakers curled upon the sides of Deer, broke in fragments like windblown froth, curled back, and broke again, as if lashing the rocks and forest trees. Up the deep channel of the valley the waves rolled on with a steady rhythm and fall of surf that should have filled the mountain spaces with its thunder. Across the shining flood, against the black shoulders of opposite shores, the same surf tossed and fell. Yet there was no echo far or near, or murmur; only the hush of a phantom world. Durgan stood long on a portion of the mountain-top which was covered with short, scrubby oak in young leaf, fascinated by the mighty movement and intense silence. A rustle came near him amongst the covert. He looked down and stroked the head of one of Bertha's great dogs. He saw the mistress coming: she was cloaked and hooded. It was the hood, perhaps, that hindered her observing him till she was very near. She uttered a cry of undisguised terror, throwing out her arm, as if to ward off an expected blow. This movement of defense, so instinctive, told Durgan more than any tale of woe the lips could frame. He was confounded by such evidence of some scene or scenes of past cruelty.