Page:Weird Tales Volume 46 Number 3 (1954-07).djvu/83

 the dog, while the boy caught hold of his arm.

Sebastian was a good judge of men. He had had a master once who was no good to dogs. But Nick he liked and trusted and Paul seemed to do the same.

“Sebastian can run very fast, he likes to jump as high as he can. He’s a kind dog, he isn’t rough. I like him.”

But Paul’s chatter went unheeded, for Nick was looking at Francesca and he knew there was joy in seeing her but that the unease in his mind took the first place. Could he tell her not to go—where it was best she shouldn’t go, she and the boy? Why, Sebastian never went there; he had had him with him one afternoon, and the dog had refused to come through that bit of the wood. That was before—well, before I knew, said Nick to himself. Yet how could he spoil the sunny autumn day with a tale which would frighten her, if she didn’t think him mad? But she mustn’t walk there, simply mustn’t go. What could he tell her and, then—“We’re felling trees,” he said with some truth, but the felling was far from the place he meant, “it’s as well not to walk in the woods here just now.”

Three pairs of eyes were looking at him, including those of Sebastian. The autumn day fell about them, clear and cold

and there was the stillness in it of the turn of the year, a birdlcss silence when only the robin sings or a few starlings chatter on the housetops. There was a robin about today and he called shrilly as he flew from one tree to the other, but there were no other sounds.

“If the men are felling trees, they are very quiet," said Francesca. She looked puzzled and Nick saw with horror that some of his unspoken anxiety might be affecting her.

“They’re having a break for a cup of tea, I expect,” he said stoutly. “They’ve got a hut in the woods where they eat.”

"Shall we hear the trees falling very often?” Francesca asked. “I never like it, trees are so much older than we are, they’ve seen so much.”

“They’re only felling small trees here,” said Nick and almost felt his color rising as he lied to her trusting eyes.

I did it in a good cause, he told himself savagely, when he had left Francesca and Paul and loathed himself for having lied. But they must never go near that part of the woods, never.

WEEK went by and then came a tearing wind from the sea that ripped off the leaves like bits of paper, piling them in deep heaps. It stayed dull all day and when Nick came back