"Mind you carve your name on the gate, to prove you go there at all!"
CHAPTER XLI.
"THE POACHER'S GHOST."
"But I am constant as the Northern Star."
It was not dark, it was not even dusk, when Helen, having fought her way through the laurustinus and syringa of the pleasure-grounds, mounted the hill which lay between Crowmore and Ballyredmond. Here she paused on the summit, and looked back. What a change even two days can make in one's whole existence! Two evenings previously she had been picking mushrooms on this very hill in her ordinary, tranquil frame of mind; now, glancing down on the old Castle, Crowmore was to have a new master, and she must leave its shelter! Her annual pittance would soon be due, and she would thus be enabled to return to her duties, at Malvern House. Well, she had never intended to quarter herself altogether on her cousins! With a half-stifled sigh she turned her face towards Ballyredmond, whose gables and chimneys peeped above the trees. And so Gilbert Lisle was under that roof—probably at dinner at that moment, sitting opposite to Miss Calderwood! "Of course he is engaged to her," she said aloud; "Dido only denied it because the wish was father to the thought! I dare say they will be married soon; perhaps before I leave. Well, I think I shall be able to decorate the church, and even to accept an invitation to the wedding—if I get one!"
These thoughts brought her to the notorious gate, which separated the two estates. It led from the hill-side pasture of Crowmore straight into the dense woods of Ballyredmond and was at present fastened by a stout padlock. There was no sign of John Dillon; no sound to be heard, save the cawing of rooks and the cooing of wood-pigeons; and, without a moment's delay, Helen dived into her pocket, produced a small penknife, and commenced to carve her initials with somewhat suspicious haste. She was not the least afraid of ghosts; her solution of the great "apparatus" scare had effectually banished all such fears; but it was a silent, lonely place, where she had no desire to linger.
The wood she was operating upon was hard, the penknife brittle, and the process slow. She had only achieved the letter H, when her ears, being quickened by an almost unconscious apprehension, caught the tread of a footstep coming through the plantation. Nearer and nearer it approached; now it was walking over leaves, which deadened the sound; now it stepped upon a rotten twig, which snapped. Her heart, despite her bravery, commenced to flutter wildly. Was this the poacher's ghost? she would know in another second; in another second the branches were thrust aside by a grey tweed arm, and she beheld, not John Dillon,—but Gilbert Lisle! and she felt that the sharpest crisis of her life, was at hand.
He stopped for an instant, as though to collect himself, then came straight up to the gate and doffed his cap. He looked grave, and extremely pale; and after a perceptible pause, he said,—
"Miss Denis, I am very glad to meet you again."
In answer to this she merely inclined her head. At this supreme moment she could not have spoken to save her life.