Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/109

 panes to the light; they could see that paths had been dug on Resurrection Rock; they could see streaks and soil in the snow on the roof of the house which indicated that smoke recently had blown from the chimneys; but now no vapor was visible, not even such emanation of smoldering embers as had risen from Asa's stovepipe. The house was bleak and lifeless, while the evidences of recent occupation, instead of diminishing, strangely increased its air of desolation. Probably this feeling was largely the result of images which possessed Ethel; but images affected the Indian, too.

She had not yet inquired of Asa whether he knew of any unusual occurrence here during the night because she had assumed that he would not know. Inquiring, she was answered now by a negative; but Asa's eyes roved uneasily about the house, and he plainly was reluctant to proceed.

Yet he helped her over the rough hummocks which the waves of the early winter had thrown up about the base of the Rock; they ascended the path at the northern end of the island to a clump of pine and cedar which clung in a hollow; they passed a clear space where the Indian fisherman of long ago had planted his squash and potatoes and where Halford—whom Ethel could just remember—had kept his vegetable garden.

She was thinking of Halford and wondering about him, not in any separation from her anxiety for Barney Loutrelle. Halford's vigil upon the Rock many years ago must have been connected, she thought, with all the strange circumstances surrounding the place which yesterday had reached a certain culmination in the coming of Barney Loutrelle from abroad under directions from London. Recalling to herself the extraordinary text