Shelby........November 7, 1898.
XXV
"WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM NOW?"
This was the document and these the words which Deborah, widow of
the man thus doubly denounced, had been given to read by the
father of the writer, in the darkened room which had been and
still was to her, an abode of brooding thought and unfathomable
mystery.
No wonder that during its reading more than one exclamation of
terror and dismay escaped her, as the once rehabilitated form of
the dead and gone started into dreadful life again before her
eyes. There were so many reasons for believing this record to be
an absolute relation of the truth.
Incoherent phrases which had fallen from those long-closed lips
took on new meaning with this unveiling of an unknown past.
Repugnances for which she could not account in those old days, she
now saw explained. He would never, even in passing, give a look at
the ruin on the bluff, so attractive to every eye but his own. As
for entering its gates--she had never dared so much as to ask him
to do so. He had never expressed his antipathy for the place, but
he had made her feel it. She doubted now if he would have climbed
to it from the ravine even to save his child from falling over its
verge. Indeed, she saw the reason now why he could not explain the
reason for the apathy he showed in his hunt for Reuther on that
fatal day, and his so marked avoidance of the height where she was
found.
Then the watch! Deborah knew well that watch.
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