Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/92

86 She could not even cry out as the door closed behind him.

Alan had his father's stern and steady pride, but there were differences of temperament that led to frequent clashes of will between them. Reuben Hallowell loved both his motherless children, but he understood his son less well than his daughter. What would be the result of that interview, Cicely wondered, sitting quaking beside the candle that burned so lonely in the gloom. Would her father know how to be firm and patient, how to undo the harm that Martin Hallowell had wrought? It seemed, as she sat there, shivering, that she could not endure the suspense.

She had not long to wait. The door banged open and Alan stood for a moment on the threshold.

"My father forbids my sailing on the Huntress. I have told him I should go in spite of him," he said.

He walked away along the corridor and down the stone steps, his feet quicker and lighter than Martin Hallowell's but his footsteps sounding, in some vague, terrible way, like his cousin's as he strode out and down the stairs.

Her father came in a moment later.

"You should have been at home long since this, my child," was all he said, and they went out together, without further talk of the matter, into the sharp air of the snowy night.

At the corner of the steep, narrow street, Cicely caught sight of Martin Hallowell talking to a man