Perhaps he might
persuade her. But there was no opportunity. Even as far back as
December, as soon as the rebellion began evidently to wane, Edwards
had began to turn the cold shoulder to him on his visits to the store.
He had put up with insults which had made his cheek burn, merely
because at the store was his only chance of seeing Desire. But
Edwards' tone to him after that meeting with her, had been such that
he knew it was only by violence that he could again force an entrance
over the storekeeper's threshold. The fact was, Edwards, now that the
danger was over, blamed himself for an unnecessary subservience to the
insurgent leader, and his mortified pride expressed itself in a
special virulence toward him. There was then no chance of seeing
Desire. She loved him, but he must fly and leave her. One moment he
said to himself that he was the happiest of men. In the next he cursed
himself as the most wretched. And so alternately smiling and cursing,
he wandered about the village during those last days of January like
one daft, too much absorbed in the inward struggle to be more than
half conscious of his danger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH
THE BATTLE OF WEST STOCKBRIDGE
One day, three days before the end of January, as Perez, returning
from a walk, approached the guardhouse, he saw that it was in
possession of Deputy Sheriff Seymour and a posse.
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