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A hush not of earth nor air nor the things that were of her ken seemed to have fallen about them, muffing the dark loneliness as by invisible flakes. The children had crouched close together for comfort. They feared the little, gray-faced woman who seemed to have stolen into their mother’s place and looked at them with strange eyes.
The soldier stood erect, gray-faced and immovable, his eyes fixed, his teeth set, his hand gripping the pike, till the insects, reassured, began to chirr close about him. Then his lids quivered; the pike leaned in his grasp; his jaw relaxed, weakly. He shifted his position and frowned, flung up his head and resumed his vigil. The moments went on and yet he retained his tense posture.
A solemn little gathering was this at the shack, while up at the quarters two sorrow-stricken women, Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, were striving to soothe and still poor Lilian, to whom the truth had had to be told. All the officers were up and astir, some of them conferring with their gray-faced commandant at the doorway, others heading the search over among the willows and down the stream.
He rebaited and dropped his line forlornly into the water. "Maybe he'll bite again," he suggested, hoping against fate. The minutes dragged. The gaunt, gray-faced southerner stretched out on the pier for a nap. The sandy-haired German rose from his seat beside the hunchback, stretched the stiffness from his arms, and unjointed his pole.
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