All day she wandered in the woods, returning to the cottage pale and listless, to leave her plate untouched or at best trifled with. Gideon Rolfe saw the change which had befallen her, but held his peace, though a bitter rage filled his heart; Martha Rolfe chided her for her listlessness, and tried to tempt her to eat; but Una put chiding and coaxing aside with a gentle smile, and escaped to the lake where she could dream alone and undisturbed.
The two days passed—on the third, as she was sitting beside the spot which had grown sacred in her eyes, with its crushed and broken ferns, she heard steps behind. Thinking that they were those of her father or one of the charcoal burners, she did not turn her head. The footsteps drew nearer, and a man came out from the thick wood and stood on the margin of the lake, and remained for a moment looking about him.
Una was so hidden by the tall brake that she remained unseen, and sat holding her breath watching him.
He was tall, thin, and dressed in black, and when he turned his face toward her, Una saw that he was not ill-looking. She might have thought him handsome but for that other face which was always in her mental vision. He was very pale, and looked anxious and ill at ease; and as he stood looking before him his right hand took his left into custody. It was Stephen Davenant.
For a few moments he stood with a half-searching, half-absent expression on his pale face, then turned and entered the wood again.
Pale with wonder and curiosity, Una rose and looked after him, and to her infinite surprise saw a carriage slowly approaching.
A lady was seated in it, a lady with a face as pale as the man’s but with a still more anxious and deprecating expression.
Una, with the quickness of sight acquired by a life spent in communion with nature, could see, even at that distance, that the lady’s eyes were like those of the man’s, and, furthermore, that she was awaiting his approach with a nervous timidity that almost amounted to fear.
With fast beating heart Una watched them wondering what could have brought them to Warden, wondering who and what they were, when suddenly her heart gave a great bound, for the gentleman, turning to the driver, said, in a soft, low voice:
“We are looking for the cottage of a woodman, named Gideon Rolfe.”