Free Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green Page A

the shock of a sudden distrust seized him, and he flung
himself down in terror, feeling and feeling again among the fallen
leaves and broken twigs, till a full realisation of his misfortune
reached him, and he was obliged to acknowledge that the place was
empty.
    Overwhelmed at his loss, aghast at the consequences it must entail
upon him, he rose in a trembling sweat, crying out in his anger
and dismay:
    "She has been here! She has taken it!" And realising for the first
time the subtlety and strength of the antagonist pitted against
him, he forgot his new resolutions and even that old promise made
in his childhood to Agatha Webb, and uttered oath after oath,
cursing himself, the woman, and what she had done, till a casual
glance at the heavens overhead, in which the liquid moon hung calm
and beautiful, recalled him to himself. With a sense of shame, the
keener that it was a new sensation in his breast, he ceased his
vain repinings, and turning from the unhallowed spot, made his way
with deeper and deeper misgivings toward a home made hateful to
him now by the presence of the woman who was thus bent upon his
ruin.
    He understood her now. He rated at its full value both her
determination and her power, and had she been so unfortunate as to
have carried her imprudence to the point of surprising him by her
presence, it would have taken more than the memory of that day's
solemn resolves to have kept him from using his strength against
her. But she was wise, and did not intrude upon him in his hour of
anger, though who could say she was not near enough to hear the
sigh which broke irresistibly from his lips as he emerged from the
wood and approached his father's house?
    A lamp was still burning in Mr. Sutherland's study over the front
door, and the sight of it seemed to change for a moment the
current of Frederick's thoughts. Pausing at the gate, he
considered with himself, and then with a freer countenance and a
lighter step was about to proceed inward, when he heard the sound
of a heavy breather coming up the hill, and hesitated—why he
hardly knew, except that every advancing step occasioned him more
or less apprehension.
    The person, whoever it was, stopped before reaching the brow of
the hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick
heard. Though it was no more profane than those which had just
escaped his own lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him
which was only second in intensity to the terror of the discovery
that the money he had so safely hidden was gone.
    Trembling in every limb, he dashed down the hill and confronted
the person standing there.
    "You!" he cried, "you!" And for a moment he looked as if he would
like to fell to the ground the man before him.
    But this man was a heavyweight of no ordinary physical strength
and adroitness, and only smiled at Frederick's heat and
threatening attitude.
    "I thought I would be made welcome," he smiled, with just the hint
of sinister meaning in his tone. Then, before Frederick could
speak: "I have merely saved you a trip to Boston; why so much
anger, friend? You have the money; of that I am positive."
    "Hush! We can't talk here," whispered Frederick. "Come into the
grounds, or, what would be better, into the woods over there."
    "I don't go into any woods with you," laughed the other; "not
after last night, my friend. But I will talk low; that's no more
than fair; I don't want to put you into any other man's power,
especially if you have the money."
    "Wattles,"—Frederick's tone was broken, almost unintelligible,—
"what do you mean by your allusion to last night? Have you dared
to connect me—"
    "Pooh! Pooh!" interrupted the other, good-humouredly. "Don't let
us waste words over a chance expression I may have dropped. I
don't care anything about last night's work, or who was concerned
in it. That's nothing to me. All I want, my boy, is the money, and
that I want devilish bad, or I would not have run up here from
Boston, when I might have made half a