Well, good-night," said Carnac. "It will all come right some day."

A moment afterwards he was gone. His mother sat down in her seat by the
window; his father sat brooding by the table.

Carnac stole down the hillside, his heart burning in him. It had not
been a successful day.

CHAPTER XIV. THE HOUSE OF THE THREE TREES

During Carnac's absence, Denzil had lain like an animal, watching, as it
were, the doorway out of which Tarboe came and went. His gloom at last
became fanaticism. During all the eight months of Carnac's absence he
prowled in the precincts of memory.

While Junia was at home he had been watchfully determined to save her
from Tarboe, if possible. He had an obsession of wrong-mindedness which
is always attached to crime. Though Luke Tarboe had done him no wrong,
and was entitled, if he could, to win Junia for himself, to the mind
of Denzil the stain of his brother's past was on Tarboe's life. He saw
Tarboe and Junia meet; he knew Tarboe put himself in her way, and he was
right in thinking that the girl, with a mind for comedy and coquetry,
was drawn instinctively to danger.

Undoubtedly the massive presence of Tarboe, his animal-like, bull-headed
persistency, the fun at his big mouth and the light in his bold eye had
a kind of charm for her. It was as though she placed herself within the
danger zone to try her strength, her will; and she had done it without
real loss. More than once, as she waited in the office for old John
Grier to come, she had a strange, intuitive feeling that Tarboe might
suddenly grip her in his arms.

She flushed at the thought of it; it seemed so absurd. Yet that very
thought had passed through the mind of the man. He was by nature a
hunter; he was self-willed and reckless. No woman had ever moved him in
his life until this girl crossed his path, and he reached out towards
her with the same will to control that he had used in the business of
life. Yet, while this brute force suggested physical control of the
girl, it had its immediate reaction. She was so fine, so delicate, and
yet so full of summer and the free unfettered life of the New World,
so unimpassioned physically, yet so passionate in mind and temperament,
that he felt he must atone for the wild moment's passion--the passion
of possession, which had made him long to crush her to his breast. There
was nothing physically repulsive in it; it was the wild, strong life
of conquering man, of which he had due share.