The two met, with a hasty familiarity of welcome, and words passed between them. These were earnest, rapid, vehement; but Mr. Tuke could not gather their import. More than once the woman’s voice wavered up for an instant into a tone of scorn and indignation, which was as quickly subdued.
Then, in a moment, something had passed from the man to the stranger—something, wrapped in an old chequered handkerchief, that she received delicately and hid under her shawl,—and they had parted, and the woman had gone to the gate with a sound of sobbing.
“Mr. Whimple, Mr. Whimple,” thought Mr. Whimple’s master—“if there was only a little more brass in your hang-dog face, I could respect, if I didn’t encourage, your tactics.”
He saw the fellow turn and scurry away as he had come, and gave an indrawn whistle deflected at the stop, as men do who vent upon themselves an emotion of surprise.
“Now, what is the riddle?” he muttered. “Our effectless friend can find the means to a little barter on his own account, it seems. But where is in all the house to tempt his honesty? Well, forewarned is forearmed; and there is an end of the reaction in your favour, Mr. Dennis.”
He left the wood by and by, and made for the house, lost in speculation. For the present he was resolved to allude in no way to the interview he had been witness of; and to alter no whit of his manner towards his servant. So should he be clad in double proof who keeps secret his discovery of his enemy’s ambush.
Despite the decision, however, he found it no light matter to give to his consideration for his dependent that air of spontaneity he had made it his task to exhibit. He could hardly tell if it were his own reawakened suspicions they saw themselves reflected in the man’s face; but—so it seemed to him—the latter was full of a covert significance of guilt and trepidation that was expressed in a certain watchfulness most difficult to ignore.
He was sitting, having finished his dinner, deep in thought; when this very fellow entered to say that a man without craved the indulgence of a word with his honour.
“A man?—What man?” said Tuke.
“He is a stranger to me, sir.”