“He’s coming!” Miss Elliott whispered, with nervous exultation, looking over her shoulder. “He’s going to follow.”
“He was sure to,” said I.
We trudged briskly on, followed at some fifty paces by the perturbed watchman. Presently I heard my companion utter a sigh so profound that it was a whispered moan.
“What is it?” I murmured.
“Oh, it’s the thought of Quesnay and to-morrow; facing them with THIS!” she quavered. “Louise has written a letter for me to give them, but I’ll have to tell them—”
“Not alone,” I whispered. “I’ll be there when you come down from your room in the morning.”
We were embarked upon a singular adventure, not unattended by a certain danger; we were tingling with a hundred apprehensions, occupied with the vital necessity of drawing the little spy after us—and that was a strange moment for a man (and an elderly painter-man of no mark, at that!) to hear himself called what I was called then, in a tremulous whisper close to my ear. Of course she has denied it since; nevertheless, she said it—twice, for I pretended not to hear her the first time. I made no answer, for something in the word she called me, and in her seeming to mean it, made me choke up so that I could not even whisper; but I made up my mind that, after THAT if this girl saw Mr. Earl Percy on his way back to the inn before she wished him to go, it would be because he had killed me.
We were near the end of the lane when the neigh of a horse sounded sonorously from the road beyond.
Mr. Percy came running up swiftly and darted by us.
“Who’s that?” he called loudly. “Who’s that in the cart yonder?”