He has not long to wait. Before five minutes are over he hears the sound of a horse's feet. "Linley must not see him watching them," he thinks, with a sort of shame at himself, and so steps back into the shade of a great tree. Linley rides by _alone_. His face is turned towards the house, in whose great black façade the lighted windows make oblong-shaped red glories; his eyes are trying to fix upon Esther's casement. Of course he hits upon the wrong one, and directs his sentimental gaze towards the apartment where, with wig off and teeth out, Mrs. Blessington, aided by her maid, is slowly moving through the stages of her dinner toilette. "She must have taken the short-cut across the park," thinks Gerard, with a sense of unwilling relief. "Afraid of my telling tales of her escapade, I suppose." He retraces his steps down the avenue, and, following a back road that skirts the kitchen-garden, reaches another gate that leads into the park, and there stands and waits again. The short-cut has proved rather a long one. Part of the park has been fenced off, to keep the deer and the Scotch cattle separate; a gate which she had reckoned upon finding open, she discovers to be padlocked, and has to make a long circuit round to another gate. As she toils weary-footed through the wet grass, vague alarms assail him that watches for her. Can any evil have come to her in the darkness? Most improbably in that still, safe park. After a while, and when his reasonless fears are beginning to gather more strongly about his heart, he hears the sound as of some one running pantingly. Esther is not so good at running as she was in the old Glan-yr-Afon days. She has been flying along in hot haste, with a mixed fear of Scotch bulls and goblins in pursuit. As she approaches the gate, Gerard opens it for her. Seeing it swing open without any apparent cause, she gives a great nervous start; then, discovering the motive cause of the phenomenon, drops into a walk. "It is rather late, Mr. Gerard, I'm afraid, isn't it so?" she asks, with some hesitation at this disobedience to his command of silence. And yet, surely, if he had meant not to speak to her, he would not have come thither. Two speech-gifted human beings could hardly be expected to meet with less civility than two pigs, who would at least exchange a grunt. He looks at his watch again. "It is ten minutes to six," he replies with punctilious politeness. "Is it _really?_ I had no idea how the time went," she says, apologetically, "until your look of--of--_surprise_ reminded me." The line of defence she has hit upon is unlucky. "Really!" he answers, stiffly. "I had not noticed how the light had gone, nor anything about the matter," she continues, innocently, floundering at every word into deeper disgrace. "I daresay not," he replies, freezingly. She had addressed him, penitent and humble, willing to take a scolding in all submissiveness, but the chill brevity of his answers turns her meekness to gall.