"Don't it look like a witch's, Missy?" Virgie said, as Vesta took in its
not unpicturesque outlines and crude plank carpentry, the weather-rotted
roof, the decrepit chimney at the far end, the one garret window in the
sharp gable, the scant little windows above stairs, and the doors low to
the sand.
"It may have been the pride of the town fifty years ago, Virgie. I have
passed it many a day, looking with mischievous curiosity for the
steeple-hat, to show that to some city friend, little thinking I must
ever enter the house. But hear that wilful bird singing so loud! Where
is it?"
"I can't tell to save my life. It ain't in the tree yonder. It's the
first bird up this mornin', Miss Vessy, sho'!"
"Is not that larger door standing ajar, the one with the four panels in
it?" Vesta asked. "Yes, it is unfastened and partly open."
The blood left Vesta's heart a moment, as the thought ran through her
mind: "He has been watched, followed home, and murdered!"
The idea seemed to explain his absence on his marriage night, and, like
a sudden flame first seen upon a burning ship, lighting up the wide
ocean with its bright terrors, Vesta saw the infinite relations of such
a crime: her almost secret marriage, her custody of her father's notes,
the record of them upon her husband's books, his last word at the church
gate: "I will come soon, darling," and now, this silent abode, with its
door ajar on Sunday dawn, before the town was up--they might bear the
suspicion of a dreadful crime by the ruined debtor house of Custis
against their friendless creditor.
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