With a moan of terror he managed to stand upright, and, mopping his livid face with his handkerchief, struggled for courage to call out.
His voice came at last, and huskily and feebly he called: “Who’s there?”
No answer came. He waited for a minute, until the use of his legs came back to him, then set off, as fast as his trembling limbs would permit, down the avenue.
Almost before he had reached the lodge, the figure came out from among the trees, and, gliding from the shelter of one trunk to another, made for the railing and looked after him.
Then, if Bartley Bradstone could have summoned up courage to look back, he would have seen that what he had taken for the wraith of the woman he had shot was Seth the gypsy, clad in an ordinary carter’s frock and wearing a slouch hat that nearly concealed his face.
Seth got over the fence and stood looking up and down the avenue warily. The smock was torn with brambles, Seth’s face looked grimy and drink-worn, and there was a furtive, sinister gleam in his black, cunning eyes.
“Give you a fright, did I, Master Bradstone!” he muttered, huskily. “I’ll give you one or two more afore I’ve done with you.”
Then he was about to leap over the railing back into the wood again, when something white lying on the ground where Bartley Bradstone had been standing, caught his eye.
He pounced upon it as only a lurcher or a gypsy can, and turned it over with eager curiosity.
It was the letter containing Bartley Bradstone’s confession, which he had pulled out from his pocket with his handkerchief.