He waited until Jessop was well out of sight, and with his mind made up, he was about to scramble to his feet, but he dropped down again, feeling sure he must have been seen, for he was conscious of a figure higher up the slope, coming slowly towards him; and soon after Sturgess, with his arm still in a sling, came close by, went down to the shelf-track, and there seated himself in a nook amongst some ferns. This forced the young clerk to slowly worm himself along among the heath and whortleberry tufts for a couple of hundred yards before the rising ground was well between them, when he went off at a sharp walk in the direction taken by the Major. Meanwhile Jessop had gone on smoking heavily till he reached the river side, where he stopped gazing down into the sparkling water, evidently thinking deeply, and drawing hard at his cigar, till it was nearly done, when he threw it to fall with a loud hiss into the stream. Then, with a quiet, satisfied aspect he went on for a few steps, and turned up the tiny gully hard by the Major's garden. Fortune favoured him, for Dinah was seated in the shady porch working; and she started up in alarm as he came close up. "Don't be frightened," he said, with a smile, and holding out his hand. "Surely you have not forgotten me?" "No," said Dinah, recovering herself, though her heart beat heavily from apprehension. "You called here once before." "To be sure I did; but you will shake hands?" "As a friend of Mr Clive Reed, under the present circumstances, surely, sir, it is better not," she replied with dignity. "Sir--under the present circumstances," he cried bitterly. "The old story. Blackguard again. Ah," he said, with a stamp of the foot, "is that man to go through the whole of his life spreading malicious slanders about his brother?" Dinah was silent. "Then you will not shake hands with one who spared no effort to get himself appointed to stay down here--whose sole thought has been of her whom he met once--only once--but whose impression was fixed so deeply upon his heart that ever since he has thought of her night and day." Dinah rose and drew back into the doorway, looking at him with contempt. "Is this part of some melodrama, Mr Jessop Reed?" she said, "or do you imagine that you are speaking to a weak rustic girl?" "I am speaking the truth--blunderingly, perhaps," he cried excitedly, "but in the best way I can. I wonder that I am not dumb before you. How can you be so cruel. You must have seen how you impressed me when I was down here before. That feeling has grown into an overpowering passion. Dinah Gurdon," he cried, catching her hand, "I came down hereto live--to love you. I cannot help it." "And you know that I am your brother's betrothed," she said wildly.