Then he was surprised to hear Felice's voice
asking, "'Ave you a letter for me, then, Meester Lockwude?"
Felice made an excuse of asking thus for her mail each night that
Lockwood came from town, and for a month they kept up appearances; but
after that they dropped even that pretense, and as often as he met her
Lockwood dismounted and walked by her side till the light in the cabin
came into view through the chaparral.
At length Lockwood made a mighty effort. He knew how very far he had
gone beyond the point where between the two landmarks called right and
wrong a line is drawn. He contrived to keep away from Felice. He sent
one of the men into town for the mail, and he found reasons to be in the
mine itself whole half-days at a time. Whenever a moment's leisure
impended, he took his shotgun and tramped the mine ditch for leagues,
looking for quail and gray squirrels. For three weeks he so managed that
he never once caught sight of Felice's black hair and green eyes, never
once heard the sound of her singing.
But the madness was upon him none the less, and it rode and roweled him
like a hag from dawn to dark and from dark to dawn again, till in his
complete loneliness, in the isolation of that simple, primitive life,
where no congenial mind relieved the monotony by so much as a word,
morbid, hounded, tortured, the man grew desperate--was ready for
anything that would solve the situation.
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