Dino, meanwhile, had plunged into the darkness, without a thought of fear for himself. He walked away from the house just as she had seen him in her waking dream, with head bent and eyes fixed on the ground. He took the right road to Dunmuir, more by accident than by design, and walked beneath the rows of sheltering trees, through which the loch gleamed whitely on the one hand, while on the other the woods looked ominously black, without a thought of the revengeful ferocity which lurked beneath the velvet smoothness of Hugo Luttrell's outer demeanour. If something moved amongst the trees on his right hand, if something crouched amongst the brushwood, like a wild animal prepared to spring, he neither saw nor heard the tokens which might have moved him to suspicion. But suddenly it seemed to him that a wild cry rang out upon the stillness of the night air. His friend's name—or was it his own?—three times repeated, in tones of heartrending pain and terror. "Brian! Brian! Brian!" Whose voice had called him? Not that of anyone he knew. And yet, what stranger would use that name? He stopped, looked round, and answered:—
"Yes, I am here."
And then it struck him that the voice had been close beside him, and that, standing where he stood in the middle of the long, white road, it was quite impossible that any one could be so near, and yet remain unseen.
With a slight shudder he let his eyes explore the sides of the road: the hedgerows, and the bank that rose on his right hand towards the wood. Surely there was something that moved and stopped, and moved again amongst the bracken. With one bound Dino reached the moving object, and dragged it forth into the light. He knew whom he was touching before he saw the face. It was Hugo who lurked in the hedgerows, waiting—and for what?
"You heard it?" said Dino, as the young man crouched before him, scarcely daring to lift up his head, although at that moment, if he had had his wits about him, he could not have had a better chance for the accomplishment of any sinister design. "Who called?"
Hugo cast a quick startled glance at the wood behind him. "I heard nothing," he said, sullenly.
"I heard a voice that called me," said Dino. Then he looked at Hugo, and pressed his shoulder somewhat heavily with his hand. "What were you doing there? For whom were you waiting?"
"For nobody," muttered Hugo.
"Are you sure of that? I could almost believe that you were waiting for me; and should I be far wrong? When I think of that other time, when you deceived me, and trapped me, and left me dying, as you thought, in the streets, I can believe anything of you now."
Hugo's trembling lips refused to articulate a word. He could neither deny the charge nor plead for mercy.