She dropped as though shot.
He was at her heels again. Face down, flat on the earth, she lay panting in her form.
And as she crouched there, listening to the thumping of her own heart, she was aware of another sound that came rollicking down to her, born on the wind. The Hunter was laughing, that huge gusty laughter of his she knew so well. Had he tracked her down?
She heard his feet approaching on the turf. Was the earth trembling at the touch of them or was it the beating of her own heart that shook it?
Prone on the ground, spying through the roots of the gorse, she could see those feet—those solid familiar boots that had dangled so often before her fire; and the bottoms of the trousers, frayed at the edges and rather short, betraying the absence of a woman's care.
Was it her he was after?
No: he passed, still rollicking. He was not mocking her: he was tossing off his chest in cascades of giant laughter the seas that had so long threatened to overwhelm him, tossing them off into the blue in showers of spray.
I am free once more! that was what his laughter said.
She sat up: she knelt: warily she peeped over the green wall. His back was moving solidly away in the evening, his back with the swag on it. He reached the flag-staff and dropped away down into Hodcombe, that lies between Beau-nez and the Belle-tout light-house. She watched him till only his round dark head was visible. Then that too disappeared. She rose and filled her chest as the breeze slowly fills the sails of a ship that has long hovered uncertainly in stays.
He too was gone—into IT.