Wrath rose in Durgan. "Fool that I was to warn her," he thought. "She has wired to the man she shields to be on his guard." At that moment his wife's welfare was not in his thought, and he felt he would rather have suffered the last penalty of crime himself than allow this coil of secrets to exist longer. He inwardly cursed all women, and was very sorry for Alden. Alden, meanwhile, unconscious of need for passion, was explaining that he knew what the telegram must be, as he had heard Miss Claxton mention that some supplies on which she was depending were delayed. As he was going he would assume the responsibility of sending it. He would pay the boy. Durgan was afraid to speak. He picked up the boy, took a letter addressed to the telegraph clerk out of his pocket, and sent him running down the road at a forced pace. He put the sealed message in Alden's hands, and returned to his work before a word could escape his lips. As he toiled all day with spade and mattock, he wondered incessantly whether or not Alden would open the message to see it correctly transmitted. When the long work-day had calmed his pulse he was still too impatient to await Alden's time; sauntered down the hill, and finally reached Deer Cove. There he saw Alden looking very tired and haggard, but in no haste to return. The saw-mill was silent for the night. The quiet plash of the water over the dam made a pleasing accompaniment to a banjo played by a negro. The musician sat on the steps of the general store and post-office; he wore a red handkerchief on his head. Some of his kind were dancing in leisurely burlesque in an open space between the steps and the mill-race. A circle of white men looked on, exchanging foolish jokes and puffing strong tobacco. Many a bright necktie or broad-brimmed hat gave picturesqueness to the group. The quiet of the sylvan evening was over and around them all. Alden, standing on the verandah of the post-office, looking upon this scene as if he were an habitual lounger, struck Durgan as presenting one of the saddest figures he had ever seen. No sign that could be controlled of any grief was there; but the incongruity between what the man was doing, and what in a better state of mind he would have liked to do, seemed to betoken a depression so deep that normal action was inhibited for the time. Durgan thought one of the Blounts was perhaps with Alden. He accordingly went straight inside the store; but the place was empty. No one of gentle birth was to be seen near or far. When he came out on the verandah Alden explained that he had insisted on leaving the trap at the Blounts' and walking. "I was stiff with the drive and felt the walk would do me good. You found me resting by the way." Durgan remarked that there was nothing like a leisurely walk when cramped with sitting long. After a while the two were beginning the ascent of Deer together, still uttering trivial words. Chapter XXVI A TORTURED CONSCIENCE