He did not answer Hawke's exclamation at once, for the sudden check had aroused him to the need of wariness. A struggle had to be avoided at all costs, he thought; for it would land them both, locked together, on the screes below. It was very pleasant to him, besides, to watch the shrinking fear visible in his enemy's attitude. The very lanthorn was rattling in his unsteady grasp, and the sound of it was music to Gordon's ears. "You did not expect to see me, did you, Austen?" he said at last, purring the words. "You did rather startle me, I own. You came along so quietly." "One needs to be careful when it is as dark as this. As it was, I lost my way. If you had not lit that lanthorn I should have been over the cliffs. I may thank you for my life," and Gordon laughed cheerfully. His words and the familiarity of his voice helped Hawke back to some portion of his confidence. But he still held the lanthorn above their heads. During these last days he had lived in a constant dread of detection, Gordon's unforeseen visit to the dale wearing to him almost the appearance of a fatality. He cursed the infatuation which had led him to summon Kate Nugent, and each fresh sight of the man he had wronged awakened in him a shudder of alarm. It is true that he had voluntarily sought Gordon's company at the farm-house the night before and again this morning. But the inconsistency of the proceeding was purely on the surface. He had felt compelled to that course by the urgency of his dread, which shook him chiefly when alone. And it was the effect of these solitary cogitations which produced his inexpressible terror on each occasion that he met the man. Once in his presence, however, the feeling wore off. He had always been accustomed to regard Gordon somewhat contemptuously in the light of an unpractical dreamer, and as he listened to his voice and watched his gestures, this habit reasserted itself from an association of ideas. He came to the conclusion that there were no grounds for his fears, crediting Gordon with no great powers of self-repression. Viewed generally, this latter judgment of Hawke's was correct. The fatal mistake, however, which he committed was to make no allowance for a possible concentration of his entire faculties upon a single aim, under the influence of an overmastering passion, such as the lust for revenge which absorbed Gordon now. On this particular occasion, however, Hawke had been more than usually startled. He had intended to leave Wastdale Head early the next morning, and had planned this expedition in order to avoid meeting Gordon again--nay, more, had actually given him a false description of his route. Consequently his sudden appearance from the surrounding darkness and the silence of his approach had intensified his feeling of alarm and betrayed it unmistakably to his companion. "You have made the circuit quickly," Gordon resumed.