At the end of one of their quarrels she had flung out on
to the balcony, and then had watched him through the opening in
the shutter. He had lighted a cigarette!
Stewart spent every daylight hour at the hotel, or walking over
the mountain roads, seldom alone with Anita, but always near her.
He left Marie sulking or sewing, as the case might be. He
returned in the evening to find her still sulking, still sewing.
But Marie did not sulk all day, or sew. She too was out, never
far from Stewart, always watching. Many times she escaped
discovery only by a miracle, as when she stooped behind an
oxcart, pretending to tie her shoe, or once when they all met
face to face, and although she lowered her veil Stewart must have
known her instantly had he not been so intent on helping Anita
over a slippery gutter.
She planned a dozen forms of revenge and found them impossible of
execution. Stewart himself was frightfully unhappy. For the first
time in his life he was really in love, with all the humility of
the condition. There were days when he would not touch Anita's
hand, when he hardly spoke, when the girl herself would have been
outraged at his conduct had she not now and then caught him
watching her, seen the wretchedness in his eyes.
The form of Marie's revenge was unpremeditated, after all. The
light mountain snow was augmented by a storm; roads were ploughed
through early in the morning, leaving great banks on either side.
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