Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered the sitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in the centre of the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing.  And she was alone in this empty room—­this deserted hotel.  From this very room her husband had left her with a brutality on his lips.  From this room the fool and liar she had tried to warn had gone to her ruin with a swindling hypocrite.  And from this room the only man in the world she ever cared for had gone forth bewildered, wronged, and abused, and she knew now she could have kept and comforted him.

CHAPTER IV.

When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads he turned into the only wayside house, the blacksmith’s shop, and, declaring his intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked permission to leave his hand-bag and wraps until they could be sent after him.  The blacksmith was surprised that this “likely mannered,” distinguished-looking “city man” should walk eight miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade him, offering his own buggy.  But he was still more surprised when Demorest, laying aside his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it on his arm, prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that he would do the distance in a couple of hours and get in in time for supper.  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said the blacksmith grimly, “or even of getting a room.  They’re a stuck-up lot over there, and they ain’t goin’ to hump themselves over a chap who comes traipsin’ along the road like any tramp, with nary baggage.”  But Demorest laughingly accepted the risk, and taking his stout stick in one hand, pressed a gold coin into the blacksmith’s palm, which was, however, declined with such reddening promptness that Demorest as promptly reddened and apologized.  The habits of European travel had been still strong on him, and he felt a slight patriotic thrill as he said, with a grave smile, “Thank you, then; and thank you still more for reminding me that I am among my own ‘people,’” and stepped lightly out into the road.

The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from the heated pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit.  He found himself sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air which seemed to exhale from the wood itself, while his head and breast were swept by the mountain breeze.  He felt the old intoxication of the balmy-scented air again, and the five years of care and hopelessness laid upon his shoulders since he had last breathed its fragrance slipped from them like a burden.  There had been but little change here; perhaps the road was wider and the dust lay thicker, but the great pines still mounted in serried ranks on the slopes as before, with no gaps in their unending files.  Here was the spot where the stagecoach had passed them that eventful morning when they were coming out of their camp-life into the world of civilization; a little