"He may be watching, listening
--he generally is." Again there was no need between them to
specify to whom the pronoun referred. "Will you meet me tonight
near the sweet-pea border--about nine?"
She glided away as she spoke without waiting for him to answer, and
as soon as he was free from the magic of her presence, reaction
came and he was torn by a thousand doubts and fears and worse.
"Why, I'm mad, mad," he groaned. "I've no right to tell what I
said I would, no right at all."
And again there returned to him his vivid, dreadful memory of how
she had started on that midnight drive with her car so awfully laden.
And again there returned to him his old appalling doubt:
"Did she not know?"
And though he would willingly have left his life in her hands, he
knew he had no right to put that of others there, and yet it
seemed to him he must keep the appointment and the promise he had
made.
About nine that evening, then, he made his way to the sweet-pea
border, though, as he went, he resolved that he would not tell her
what he had said he would.
Because he trusted his own strength so little when he was with her,
he confirmed this resolution by an oath he swore to himself: and
even that he was not certain would be a sure protection against the
witchery she wielded.
So it was with a mind doubtful and troubled more than it had ever
been since the beginning of these things that he came to the border
where the sweet-peas grew, and saw a dark shadow already close by
them.
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