So silently was this act performed that for the moment the watcher asked
herself if she had not been deceived.
The answer came directly in the re-appearance of the figure, gliding
into sight and creeping on till it was in shelter, hiding not a dozen
yards from where she crouched; and she shrank back with her heart
beginning to beat heavily, while she knew that the blood was coming and
going in her cheeks.
"No; I'm not afraid of Caleb Kent," she thought to herself; and her eyes
flashed again, and in imagination she seemed to see once more the
opening where the lodge stood. Her face grew pale, and a curious
shrinking sensation attacked her as she recalled Rolph's face, his eyes
searching hers with such a bitter look of contempt and scorn.
Then instantly she seemed to be gazing at herself in the library,
clinging to her cousin, till he violently wrenched himself from her,
leaving her hopeless and crushed; and she longed bitterly for the
opportunity to make some one suffer for this.
"No," she said to herself, "I am not afraid of Caleb Kent;" and she
crouched there, seeing every movement, and in a few moments realised
that some one must be coming, for, with the activity of a cat, the young
half-gipsy, half-poacher, began to move softly back, as if to keep the
clump of brambles between him and whoever it was that was passing.
Marjorie knew directly after that this must be the case, for she could
hear the dull sound of a step, and she strained forward a little to try
and see, but shrank back again with her heart beginning to beat rapidly,
as she realised that, all intent upon the person passing in front, Caleb
Kent had no thought for what might be behind, and he had begun to back
rapidly away from the clump which had hidden him, to hide in the safer
refuge already occupied.
She knew that the step must be her cousin's, and that he was going over
to Lindham to seek Judith.
"Suppose," she asked herself, "he should come nearer and see her
hiding--apparently in company with Caleb Kent--what would he say?"
She quivered with rage and mortification, and for the moment felt
disposed to spring up and walk away, but refrained, for she knew that it
would then seem as if she had been keeping an appointment with this man,
and had been frightened into showing herself by her cousin's coming.
The situation was horrible, and she knew that all she could do was to
wait in the hope that, as soon as Rolph had gone by, Caleb would glide
after him.
"What for?" she asked herself; and she turned cold at the answering
thought.
He seemed to have no stout bludgeon, though. Perhaps he was only acting
the spy; and as soon as Rolph had been to the cottage and returned,
Caleb himself might have some intention of going there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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