Half an hour passed without incident. The evening began to darken perceptibly, and he saw a light in one of the lower windows, and the outline of the female dragon’s head, but she was evidently a discreet woman, for she quickly drew down the blind, and raised it no more.
But though it must have been quite dark indoors by this time, there was no other sign of the house being inhabited.
He was beginning to think that he had come on a wild-goose chase, and that Lady Gwendolyn might be at the other end of England, after all, when suddenly his heart began to tremble and his pulses to quicken. He had caught sight of a white figure standing in the porch, and fancied he knew that this was Lady Gwendolyn.
She stepped daintily out from under a trellis-work of roses and clematis, and looked from side to side, as if she were in search of some one.
“Does she regret her cruelty just now?” he asked himself, his breath coming short and fast from an intense eagerness of expectancy, while the wild longing within him almost frightened him, as a sign of the terrible empire this passion was gaining.
It might be so, for she glided forward to the gate like a spirit; and, standing there, looked down the road with something wistful in her attitude, as it seemed to him. He had almost decided to step forward and accost her, when she drew back suddenly, as if something had frightened her, and turned down a little path with shrubs on either side.
He had not seen her face distinctly, for she had a white shawl over her head, and was holding it close under her chin to protect her from the night air; but he could have no doubt that this was Lady Gwendolyn.
He got up and followed.
He saw her walking slowly, and looking about her with the expectant air he had noticed at first; then suddenly she paused, a dark figure stepped out of the shadow of the trees, and Colonel Dacre, with a jealous thrill, saw Lady Gwendolyn’s creamy fingers pressed fervently against the newcomer’s black mustache.
How he restrained himself from rushing forward and confronting the pair he never knew. At this moment he felt like a murderer, and thirsted for the blood of this rival, whom Lady Gwendolyn preferred to himself.