find
Peter still at home, where, with a fine dignity (which she mentally
rehearsed) she would demand explanation, and listening, grant
forgiveness. Or else ... she didn't like to think of the alternative.

But instead of Peter, at the Cabin door in the early morning sunlight
she found a strange man, sitting in a chair in the portico, smoking one
of Peter's cigarettes, and apparently much at home. The appearance of
the stranger was for a moment disconcerting, but Beth approached the
familiar doorway, her head high, the heliotrope letter burning her
fingers. She had intended to walk in at the door of the Cabin, place the
letter in a conspicuous position where Peter could not fail to see it,
and then return to her home and haughtily await Peter's arrival. But the
presence of this man, a stranger in Black Rock, making free of Peter's
habitation, evidently with Peter's knowledge and consent, made her pause
in a moment of uncertainty.

At her approach the man in the chair had risen and she saw that he was
tall--almost as tall as Peter, that he had a hooked nose and displayed a
set of irregular teeth when he smiled--which he did, not unpleasantly.
There was something about him which repelled her yet fascinated at the
same time.

"Mr. Nichols has gone out?" Beth asked, for something to say.

"Yes, Miss," said the stranger, blinking at her with his bleary eyes.
"Mr. Nichols is down at the lumber camp--won't be back until night, I
reckon. Anythin' I can do for ye?"

"No, I----?" Beth hesitated. "I just wanted to see him--to leave
somethin' for him."

"I guess he'll be right sorry to miss you. Who shall I say called?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Beth, turning away. But she was now aware
of a strange curiosity as to this person who sat with such an air of
well-being in Peter's chair and spoke with such an air of
proprietorship. The insistence of her own personal affair with Peter had
driven from her mind all thoughts of the other matters suggested in the
letter, of the possible dangers to Peter even here in Black Rock and
the mysterious references to Holy Russia. This man who stood in Peter's
portico, whoever he was, was not a Russian, she could see that at a
glance and read it in his accents, but she was equally certain from his
general character that he could be no friend of Peter's and that his
business here was not of Peter's choosing.

"If ye'd like to wait a while----"

He offered her the chair, but Beth did not