But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now
cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him,
as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was
beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his
chamber-door. One blow would beat it in. 'You might do murder
before you know it,' Tackleton had said. How could it be murder,
if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He
was the younger man.
It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It
was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should
change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely
travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would
see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim,
and hear wild noises in the stormy weather.
He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart
that HE had never touched. Some lover of her early choice, of whom
she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when
he had fancied her so happy by his side.
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