Page:The Black Cat v01no02 (1895-11).pdf/6

4 there would have been no escaping the zealous warmth of purpose which drew him into the family life and the church life of this country minister. The man had only Rudy and a rough little house, but the restlessness of his energy used them both for his ends.

And the days had taken wings. Billy found through the hours of his lonely working that there was something in his mind sup-planting Betty and the bodies which were testimony of his prowess and his power,—a something which could not have borne the revelation of Betty and the corpses. But the very instinct that had brought pride and lust of them to Billy was not alive to a shame that threw them over altogether. In the subtleness of conquest they were not the useful weapons.

Rudy's father had been Rudy's life, and she lay awake in the night now, because a man strong in his youth and the power of his love was coming between them. The atmosphere of her training had left her without the protection of suspicion, and Rudy had only the education that her frailness, their poverty, and shifting life could yield. Her femininity showed her Billy Owen's masterful physique, his superior strength, and tonic vitality. She had begun to have insight into Billy's will power. But, of all men, he gave to her deference, and gentleness, and the alertness of his interests.

And what she was conscious must come, came.

Two miners were hurt in an accident by fire, and the minister was called for in the absence of the doctor. He had arranged to hold services in a village three miles north, and Rudy was left to carry to it the news of the church's closing. She put on a sun-bonnet and went out to the barn. The old mare stepped listlessly into the shafts, when a shadow fell over the floor, and Billy filled up the doorway.

"Your father said I was to look out that you got there." He laughed, uncertain still of his welcome.

Rudy had dreaded the lonely twilight drive, and her face must have spoken for her tongue had not; but Billy took up the harnessing with a light on his own face that sent Rudy into the depths of her bonnet. She kept on her side of the fat mare, and buckled and strapped in a tangle of leather, with an indiscretion