The celestial visitor was gone almost as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come.

XXV

THE PASSING OF PHILIP ALSTON

The cold wind died down with the coming of dawn.  Going to the window to call the birds, she found the air grown unseasonably warm and saw that it was filled with a dull mist.  Leaning from the window, she looked up the forest path, wondering if Paul had ridden along it during the night on his way to the boat.  The low, broad craft was still lying in the same place beside the island, with no movement about it.  She thought of the sick man with pity, wishing that she could do something for him; but if Paul had been called in time, all must be well—­she had not a doubt of that; and an unconscious smile of pride touched her anxious face.  She hardly knew why she felt vaguely anxious and uneasy, but thought that it might be on account of the gloom of the dreary morning, and the strange look of the swollen river.  How gray and dark it was, and how heavily it ran, almost like molten lead.

As her wandering gaze followed the stream, she saw something which was still grayer and darker than the troubled waters.  She could not tell at first what it was, for it was a long way off, and far up the river.  With her hands over her eyes, she strained her sight, but the distance was too great, and the yellow haze too thick.  She could make out only a wide, dark line, wavering down from the woods to the water—­a strange, moving thing without beginning or end—­which seemed to be going faster than the river.  The strangeness of the night alarmed her and as she gazed at it, fascinated, she saw David running toward the house and waving his arms to call her attention.

“Look!  Look up the river!” he shouted as soon as he had come within hearing.  “I was afraid you wouldn’t see it.  It’s an army of squirrels marching steadily, just like soldiers, millions and millions of them!  It has been like that for hours.  I have been watching it since daylight.  The squirrels are trying to cross the river, and thousands and thousands are already drowned.  The water is brown with their bodies.”

“The poor little things!  What in the world can it mean, David?  And look at the birds!  They don’t come at all when I call them.  What is the matter with them?  I don’t see anything to disturb them, yet see how they look!  And hear the waterfowl screaming!  And the trees, too.  Why do the leaves droop like that?  How can it be so hot in December?  It was never like this before.  There isn’t a breath of air.”

“I have noticed how strange everything seems.  The forest is stiller than I ever saw it, but the wild things that live in it are strangely restless.  I have been watching them all the morning, and I heard them in the night.”

“But what does it mean, dear?  Surely some dreadful thing must be going to happen!  I wish Paul would come.  Have you seen him?  He is always riding, and the woods are dangerous in a storm, and it can’t be anything else.  Why don’t you answer?  I asked if you had seen him.”