and Martin relaxed, satisfied with the day's job. Perhaps it was really
finished, and he and Tira were square.

Tenney, having driven into the yard, blanketed the horse and thrust the
apron under the seat of the sleigh. He stood for a moment, thinking.
Should he unlock the door, go into the house, and lock it against the
woman who had run away to Raven's shack? He could not think clearly, but
it did seem to him best to open the door and look about. How had she
left things behind her? Was her absence deliberately planned? Inside, he
proceeded mechanically with the acts he would ordinarily have done after
an absence. The familiar surroundings seemed to suggest them to him. He
fitted the key into the lock again, took off his great-coat and hung it
up, chiefly because the nail reminded him, and then, the house suddenly
attacking him with all the force of lonely silence, he turned and went
out again and shut the door behind him. There was the horse. Why had he
covered him? He would naturally have unharnessed. But then he saw the
gun in the sleigh, and that, like the silent house, seemed to push him
on to something he had lost the power to will, and he took the gun and
walked fast out of the yard. Now at once he felt clear in the head. He
was going to find Raven. That was the next step. Wherever Raven was, he
must find him. But when he turned out of the yard to go up the back
road, he was aware of a strange dislike to coming upon him at the hut.
Tira was there, he knew, but if Raven also was, then there would be
something to do. It was something in the back of his mind, very dark and
formless as yet, but it was, he told himself again, something that had
to be done. Perhaps after all, even though it was to be done sometime,
it need not be to-day. Even though Tira was up there, the job was a
terrifying one to tackle when he felt so weak in his disabled foot, so
cold after Martin's jeering voice when he tossed over the key. He turned
again and went down the road to Raven's. His foot ached badly, but he
did not mind it so much now, the confusion and pain of his mind had
grown so great. It seemed, like this doubt that surrounded Tira, a curse
that was to be always with him. At Raven's, he went to the kitchen door
and knocked, and Charlotte came.

"He to home?" he asked, not looking at her, but standing there a
drooping, miserable figure.

"Jerry?" she asked. "Yes. He's in the barn, gone to feed an' water."

"No," said Tenney.