ON the following Sunday morning,when Clayton walked up to the cabin,Easter and her mother were seated in the porch.He called to them cheerily as he climbed over the fence,but only the mother answered.Easter rose as he approached,and,without speaking,went within doors.He thought she must be ill,so thin and drawn was her face,but her mother said,carelessly:
Oh,hit's only one o'Easter's spells.She's been sort o'puny 'n'triflin'o'late,but I reckon she'll be all right ag'in in a day or two."As the girl did not appear again,Clayton concluded that she was lying down,and went away without seeing her.Her manner had seemed a little odd,but,attributing that to ill-ness,he thought nothing further about it.To his surprise,the incident was repeated,and thereafter,to his wonder,the girl seemed to avoid him.Their intimacy was broken sharply off.When Clayton was at the cabin,either she did not appear or else kept herself busied with household duties.Their studies ceased abruptly.Easter had thrown her books into a corner,her mother said,and did nothing but mope all day;and though she insisted that it was only one of the girl's "spells,"it was plain that something was wrong.Easter's face remained thin and drawn,and acquired gradually a hard,dogged,almost sullen look.She spoke to Clayton rarely,and then only in monosyllables.She never looked him in the face,and if his gaze rested intently on her,as she sat with eyes downcast and hands folded,she seemed to know it at once.Her face would color faintly,her hands fold and unfold nervously,and sometimes she would rise and go within.He had no opportunity of speaking with her alone.She seemed to guard against that,and,indeed,Raines's presence almost prevented it,for the mountaineer was there always,and always now the last to leave.He sat usually in the shadow of the vine,and though his-face was unseen,Clayton could feel his eyes fixed upon him with an intensity that sometimes made him nervous.The mountaineer had evidently begun to misinterpret his visits to the cabin.Clayton was regarded as a rival.
In what other light,indeed,could he appear to Raines?Friendly calls between young people of opposite sex were rare in the mountains.When a young man visited a young woman,his intentions were supposed to be serious.Raines was plainly jealous.
But Easter?What was 'the reason for her odd behavior?Could she,too,have misconstrued his intentions as Raines had?It was impossible.But even if she had,his manner had in no wise changed.Some one else had aroused her suspicions,and if any one it must have been Raines.It was not the mother,he felt sure.
For some time Clayton's mother and sister had been urging him to make a visit home.He had asked leave of absence,but it was a busy time,and he had delayed indefinitely.In a fort-night,however,the stress of work would be over,and then he meant to leave.During that fortnight he was strangely troubled.He did not leave the camp,but his mind was busied with thoughts of Easter-nothing but Easter.Time and again he had reviewed their acquaintance minutely from the beginning,but he could find no cause for the change in her.When his work was done,he found himself climbing the mountain once more.He meant to solve the mystery if possible.He would tell Easter that he was going home.
Surely she would betray some feeling then.
At the old fence which he had climbed so often he stopped,as was his custom,to rest a moment,with his eyes on the wild beauty before him-the great valley,with mists floating from its gloomy depths into the tremulous moonlight;far through the radiant space the still,dark masses of the Cumberland lifted in majesty against the east;and in the shadow of the great cliff the vague outlines of the old cabin,as still as the awful silence around it.A light was visible,but he could hear no voices.Still,he knew he would find the occupants seated in the porch,held by that strange quiet which nature imposes on those who dwell much alone with her.He had not been to the cabin for several weeks,and when he spoke Easter did not return his greeting;Raines nodded almost surlily,but from the mother came,as always,a cordial welcome.
