A clear sound chimed across the distance—the bell of the court-house clock, striking midnight. One!... Two!... How often lately it had rung discordantly across her mood; now it seemed a clamant watcher, tolling joy. Three!... Four!... Five!... Perhaps he was sleepless, listening, too. Was he in the old library, thinking of her? Six!... Seven!... Eight!... Nine!... If she could only send her message to him on the bells! Ten!... It swelled more loudly now, more deliberate. Eleven!... Another day was almost gone. Twelve!... “Joy cometh in the morning”—ran the whisper across her thought. It was morning now. Thirteen! She caught a sharp breath. Her ear had not deceived her—the vibration still palpitated on the air [Pg 423]like a heart of sound. It had struck thirteen! A little eery touch crept along her nerves and a cool dampness broke on her skin, for she seemed to hear, quavering through the wondering silence, the voice of Mad Anthony, as it had quavered to her ear on the door-step of the negro cabin, with the well-sweep throwing its long curved shadow across the group of laughing faces: “Ah sees yo’ gwine ter him. Ah heahs de co’ot-house clock a-strikin’ in de night—en yo’ gwine.... Don’ wait, don’ wait, li’l mistis, er de trouble-cloud gwine kyah him erway f’om yo’.... When de clock strike thuhteen—when de clock strike thuhteen—” She dropped the flowered curtain and drew back. A weird fancy had begun to press on her brain. Had not Mad Anthony foretold truly what had gone before? What if there were some cryptic meaning in this, too? To go to him, at midnight, by a lonely country road—she, a girl? Incredible! Yet her mind had opened to a vague growing fear that was swiftly mounting to a thriving anxiety. That innate superstition, secretly cherished while derided, which is the heritage of the Southron-born bred from centuries of contact with a mystical race, had her in its grip. Yet all the while her sober actual common-sense was crying out upon her—and crying in vain. Unknown appetences that had lain darkling in her blood, come down to her from [Pg 424]long generations, were suddenly compelling her. The curtain began to wave in a little wind that whispered in the silk, and somewhere in the yard below she could hear Selim nipping the clover. She was to go or the “trouble-cloud” would carry him away!