These sounds died away, and
I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still,
and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky
above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering
loftily overhead.
Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.
"Ah," he murmured, "a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests.
Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox."
CHAPTER XVI
RED EVE
Over the remainder of that afternoon I will pass in silence. Indeed,
looking backward now, I cannot recollect that it afforded one incident
worthy of record. But because great things overshadow small, so it may
be that whereas my recollections of quite trivial episodes are sharp
enough up to a point, my memories from this point onward to the
horrible and tragic happening which I have set myself to relate are
hazy and indistinct. I was troubled by the continued absence of Val
Beverley. I thought that she was avoiding me by design, and in Harley's
gloomy reticence I could find no shadow of comfort.
We wandered aimlessly about the grounds, Harley staring up in a vague
fashion at the windows of Cray's Folly; and presently, when I stopped
to inspect a very perfect rose bush, he left me without a word, and I
found myself alone.
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