calm, so calm that
no one could have guessed a single detail of what lay between these
two, or the significance of their strange meeting.

"You've hit a bad trail," he said. "There's a big drop back there.
These steps go on up to my home. The old fort. They're an old short
cut to this valley. Guess your man'll need to unhitch his horses and
turn the cart round. He can't get it round else. Then, if you go back
past the shoulder of the hill, you'll see an old track, sharp to your
right. That leads into the trail that'll take you right on down to the
farm where little Joan lives." He moved toward the steps. "I'll tell
your man," he said.

He mounted the steps with the ease of familiarity, his great muscles
making the effort appear ridiculously easy. A little way up he paused,
and looked down at her.

"Guess I shall see you again?" he said, with the same curious smile in
his steady eyes.

And the woman's reply came sharply up the hillside to him. It came
with all the pent-up hatred of years, concentrated into one sentence.
The hard eyes were alight with a cold fury, which, now, in her
advancing years, when the freshness and beauty that had once been hers
could no longer soften them, was not without its effect upon the man.

"Yes. You will see me again, Moreton Bucklaw."

And the man continued the ascent with a feeling as though he had
listened to the pronouncement of his death sentence.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE WEB OF FATE

Joan had looked forward to her aunt's coming with very mixed feelings.
There were moments when she was frankly glad at the prospect of a
companionship which had been hers since her earliest childhood. Her
nature had no malice in it, and the undoubted care, which, in her
early years, the strange old woman had bestowed upon her counted for
much in her understanding of duty and gratitude. Then, besides,
whatever Aunt Mercy's outlook, whatever the unwholesomeness of the
profession she followed with fanatical adherence, she was used to her,
used to her strangenesses, her dark moments. If affection had never
been particularly apparent in the elder woman's attitude toward her,
there had certainly been a uniform avoidance of the display of any
other feeling until those last few days immediately preceding her own
flight from St. Ellis. Habit was strong with Joan, so strong, indeed,
that in her happy moments she was glad at the thought of the return
into her life of the woman who had taken the plac