The revelations of that day had fallen rudely upon the youth's delicately tuned and finely adjusted nature. He had recoiled in horror from the sacrilege which that house had suffered. In a measure he felt that he was guilty along with Ollie in her unspeakable sin, in that he had been so stupid as to permit it.
But, he reflected as he waited there with his hand upon the weathered gate, great and terrible as the upheaval of his day-world had been, the night had descended unconscious of it. The moonlight had brightened untroubled by it; the wind had come from its wooded places unhurried for it, and unvexed. After all, it had been only an unheard discord in the eternal, vast harmony. The things of men were matters of infinitesimal consequence in nature. The passing of a nation of men would not disturb its tranquillity as much as the falling of a leaf.
It was then long past the hour when he was habitually asleep, and his vigil weighed on him heavily. No one had passed along the road; Morgan had not come in sight. Joe was weary from his day's internal conflict and external toil. He began to consider the advisability of returning to bed.
Perhaps, thought he, his watch was both futile and unjust. Ollie did not intend to keep her part in the agreement. She must be burning with remorse for her transgression.
He turned and walked slowly toward the house, stopping a little way along to look back and make sure that Morgan had not appeared. Thus he stood a little while, and then resumed his way.
The house was before him, shadows in the sharp angles of its roof, its windows catching the moonlight like wakeful eyes. There was a calm over it, and a somnolent peace. It seemed impossible that iniquitous desires could live and grow on a night like that. Ollie must be asleep, said he, and repentant in her dreams.
Joe felt that he might go to his rest with honesty. It would be welcome, as the desire of tired youth for its bed is strong. At the well he stopped again to look back for Morgan.
As he turned a light flashed in the kitchen, gleamed a moment, went out suddenly. It was as if a match had been struck to look for something quickly found, and then blown out with a puff of breath.
At once the fabric of his hopes collapsed, and his honest attempts to lift Ollie back to her smirched pedestal and invest her with at least a part of her former purity of heart, came to a painful end. She was preparing to leave. The hour when he must speak had come.
