"Yes, indeed." The rector seemed to hesitate, looked at them in a heavily paternal way, and waved his hand. "Go along, do. I'll have another cup of tea, if Mrs. Fell doesn't mind. It's so comfortable here," he beamed on his hostess; "makes one ashamed of being lazy."
He sat back with a smug air, as of one who murmurs, "Ah, I was young once!" but Rampole had the impression that he didn't like it at all. It suddenly struck the American that this patronizing old bald-head (sic, in Rampole's inflamed thoughts) had a more than clerical interest in Dorothy Starberth. Why, damn the man-! Come to think of it, the way he had hung over her shoulder, smoothly, as they walked down the lane….
"I had to get out of there," the girl said, half breathlessly. Their quick footsteps rustled in the grass. "I wanted to walk, fast."
"I know."
"When you're walking," she explained, in that same breathless voice, "you feel free; you don't feel you have to keep things in the air, like a juggler, and strain yourself not to drop one Oh!"
They were going down the shadowed lane, where the grass muffled their footsteps. Its junction with the road was hidden by the hedgerows, but they became aware of feet scuffling in the dust out there, and a murmur of conversation. Abruptly one voice rose. It came twitching through the soft air, alive and ugly.
"You know the word for it right enough," the voice said. "The word is Gallows. Yes, and you know it as well as I do."
The voice laughed. Dorothy Starberth stopped, and her face-sharp against the dark-green hedge-was a face of fear.
Chapter 4
"I shall have to hurry to catch that tobacconist," the girl declared, instantly. Her small voice was raised, insistent to be heard. "Good Lord! it's past six o'clock! — But then he always reserves a box of my special brand, every day, and if I'm not there… I say! Hullo, Martin!"