but capable also of sudden, irrational
cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by
what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by
what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing
sleep--she had tried that the night before and failed--she put by her
work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down in the dark.

For a long time she interrogated the blackness about her with wide open
eyes. The house was strangely still. She could hear the movement and
squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in the side yard when some fellow
lodger disturbed it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which it
roosted. She wondered if the boys had come back yet and slipped in
quietly. Had she slept at all? About eleven o'clock there arose an
unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved the cedar tree against
the edge of the porch roof and set it complaining. For a time it moaned
and protested like a man under the knife. Then its deep baritone voice
began to cry out as though it were calling upon her. The tree had long
ceased to mean anything other than Creed to Judith, and now its outcry
aroused her to an absolute terror. Again and again as the wind the tree,
so those tones shook her heart with their pain and love and anguish of
entreaty.

Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped on her clothes and went
through all the rooms. They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been
disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible excitement.

"They're all over at the still," she whispered, clutching at the breast
of her dress, and shivering. But the old man never went near the still,
she knew that. For a while she struggled with herself, and then she said,
"I'll just go and listen outside of Uncle Jep's door. That won't do any
harm. Ef so be he's thar, then the boys is shore at the still. Ef he
ain't----"

She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished and, on feet that fear
winged, stole through the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass
to her uncle's door.

The old man must have been a light sleeper, or perhaps he was awake
before she approached, for he called out while she yet stood irresolute,
her hand stretched toward the big wooden latch.

"Who's thar?"

Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked, hesitating tone.

"It's only me--Jude. I reckon I'm a fool, Uncle Jep. I know in reason
there ain't nothin' the matter. But I jest could