Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/130

 he turned and made his way toward the water pail. He was coming nearer and nearer. He was beside her now, he would see her in a moment. In a low voice, she said, "It's me, Annie. Leander, you mustn't go away."

She heard him make a sudden quick movement of terror and echo, "Annie," and then it seemed to her that they were enveloped by a flame.

In the morning he was gone and he did not return all that day though she went a hundred times to the door of the cabin to look for him. And he did not return the next day or the next. On the fourth day they found him. It was Uriah who made the discovery. Leander was lying at the bend in the river a little way from Annie's bower. He was dead and his gun lay beside him. He had shot himself through the head.

It was Uriah who brought her the news. He told the story simply, as if he did not know the reason why Leander had destroyed himself or that it meant anything at all to her. There was only the look in the pale blue eyes, so cold, so full of hatred that Annie Spragg turned away and hid her face. Uriah Spragg had now to atone for the sin of his sister as well as the sin of his father. They never spoke of it again, for it was their habit never to speak of sins but only of sin. And they never spoke again of Leander.

But they had to leave Cordova before Uriah was ordained because people began to whisper that they