"Why, Hildreth, dearest woman, you're trembling all over, what's the
matter?... have I--I frightened you with my wild talk?"
"Never mind ... no, take your arm away ... Let me walk alone a minute
and I'll be all right ... I'll be all right in a minute ... it's just
turned a trifle chilly, that's all."
"Hush!" going down the path by the big house, Hildreth stopped,
hesitated. "I'm--I'm not going to the little cottage to-night."
"Then I'll say good-night!"
"No, come on in and we'll sneak out to the kitchen and find something to
eat ... aren't you hungry?"
"A little bit. But I'm afraid we might wake Ruth and Darrie up."
We tip-toed in. Hildreth searching for the matches, knocked the
wash-basin to the floor. We stood hushed like mice.
"Who's down there?" asked Darrie's voice, with a dash of hysteria in it
... of hysteria and fright.
"Damn it, there's Darrie waked up."
"Such a clatter would wake anyone up!"
_"Who's there, I say!"_
"It's only me, Darrie ... I got hungry in the night and came up to the
house to snatch a bite to eat."
"Oh ... I'm coming down to join you, then."
We saw Darrie standing at the top of the stairs, her eyes luminous and
wide with emotion.
She stood, rosy-bodied, in her night-dress, which was transparent in the
light of the lamp she carried....
"Johnnie's here, too!" warned Hildreth.
"Oh!" cried Darrie, and turned back, to re-appear in her kimono.
"I'm sorry we waked you up. But I knocked that infernal basin down off
the sink."
"You didn't wake me. I was awake already. I haven't slept a wink."
"Neither have we!" I responded.
"What?" Darrie asked me in so startled, impulsive a manner that Hildreth
and I laughed ... and she laughed a little, too ... and then grew grave
again....
"It was such a beautiful night, Johnnie and I took a walk in the
moonlight."
Darrie looked from one to the other of us with a wide, staring look.
"You needn't look that way, Darrie!"
"Please, please, Hildreth!"
"You and Penton have taken walks in the moonlight."
"Hildreth, dear, I'm not rebuking you ... and you know my walks with
Penton are all right, are harmless."
"Yes, I know they are ... but you mustn't rebuke me, either."
"I wasn't rebuking either you or Johnnie ... it isn't that I'm thinking
of at all ... but everything has been so uncanny here to-night ... I
could not sleep ... every little rustle of curtains, every creak or
motion in the whole house vibrated through me ... something's going to
happen to someone."
"You're only upset because Penton's in jail," I explained.
"No, that's not it ... that's nothing compared to this feeling ... this
premonition--"
"Come on, let's make some coffee ... in the percolator."
"You girls sit down and I'll make it. I've been a cook several times in
my career."
Someone was knocking about in the dark, upstairs. We heard a match
struck....
"There, we've waked Ruth, too."
"What's the matter down there?" Ruth was calling.
"Come on down and join us, Ruth,--we're having a cup of coffee a-piece."
"It's only two o'clock ... what's everybody doing up so early? Has
Penton come back?"
"No ... but do come down and join us," I replied.
* * * * *
"I tell you, I thought it was burglars at first, and I was going to the
drawer in Penton's room and get out his six-shooter."
"Does Penton keep a gun?" I asked.
"Yes ... it's the one he bought to shoot the mongrel dog with."
* * * * *
We ate some cold roast beef sandwiches and drank our coffee.
Hildreth stayed in the big house, not going down the path with me.
I went silently to my tent. It was blowing a little now. The moon was
surging along behind little, grey, running clouds. It would rain before
daylight. A haunted shiver swept through my back as I stole along the
path. I repeated poetry rapidly aloud to crowd out uncanny imaginings. I
had a silly, sick impulse to run back to the big house and sleep on the
couch in the library.
But I forced myself on. "If you're ever going to be a man, you'd better
begin now," I muttered to myself, as if talking to another person.
In my tent ... I lit the lamp. I removed all hanging objects because
their lurching shadows sent shivers of apprehension through me....
"That damned coffee--wish I hadn't drunk it."
* * * * *
The wind and rain came up like a phantom army. It sang in the trees, it
drummed musically on my tent. It comforted me.
The floodgates of my mind, my inspiration, broke loose. I rose to my
super-self. And now if a horrible thing had stood grey at my elbow,
unmoved, I would have looked it unflinchingly in the sightless
visage....
My pencil raced over paper ... raced and raced.
"Here it comes ... just like your good rain, so kind to earth.... Oh,
beautiful God, I thank Thee for making me a poet," I prayed, tears
streaming down my face.
* * * * *
The second act of _Judas_ stood complete, as if it had written itself.