The door was open, the soft step was at the threshold. The other step at the corner of the house had stopped. In the new silence the cowboy could hear his own deep, regular breathing. He could see nothing, he knew that his body pressed against the tree trunk could not be seen, and his hands were ready. He began to long for a pistol shot, for the spurt of red fire, for anything that would mean certainty and would release the coiled springs of his tense muscles.
But the still minutes dragged by and there was no certainty of anything save that the some one at the door and the some one at the corner of the house at Thornton's right were standing as still, as tense, as himself. A little sense of the grim humour of this game three people were playing in the dark, this Blind Man's Buff which he was waiting to understand, drew his lips into a quick, fleeting smile.
Now at last came the first bit of certainty. The some one at the door moved again, came to the steps and down into the garden, taking the steps slowly, with long pauses between. This some one was a man. Dimly Thornton saw the blur of the form, but more than his eyes his ears told him that this tread, though guarded, was too heavy for a girl like Winifred Waverly.
"Pollard," he told himself swiftly. "Not ten feet away. And if he comes this way ..."
The man at the steps stopped and in the long silence Thornton knew that the two other people playing this grim game with him were listening even as he was, trying to force their eyes to see through the shadows. Then the heavy tread again, and Thornton thought that it was coming nearer. Then a pause, the step once more, and Pollard, if Pollard it were, had turned the other way and keeping close to the house was moving toward the far corner. The steps grew fainter as they drew farther away, and he knew that the man had gone around the corner of the building.
That other person at the other corner of the house, at Thornton's right, had heard and understood, too. The cowboy heard steps there again, quick steps, almost running, soft, quick breathing not a yard away, and bending forward a little, knew that Winifred Waverly had come to keep her tryst with him.
She was at his side, close to him, so close that he could feel the sweep of her skirts against his boots. She, too, had leaned forward, her face lifted up to his, her eyes seeking to make sure who this man was.