“I see t’ owd gen’leman by t’ brig on Friday,” said Jem, in the same contented treble.
“Nay, Jem, I don’t think you did,” said Guy, didactically.
“I see Miss Flowra,” said Jem, in the same tone of cheerful indifference.
Guy sprang from his horse, and Jem, setting Rawdie delicately down on a bit of turf, grinned, nodded, shambled away across a field towards the river, and was out of sight in a minute.
“Oh,” said Florella, as she came up, “I hope Jem will go straight home, he has been about all day. Old Peggy is really ill. She got a chill the other day waiting for him at the bridge in the rain. You know he stops at the Dragon, and the doctor says he must be found quick, or it may go hard with her.”
“I know,” said Guy, briefly. “I’ll just go and put my horse up, and then go and fetch him. He’ll come with me. He was here this minute.”
“You know,” said Florella, in a half-whisper, “that he says t’ owd Guy stops him.”
“I know,” said Guy. “But don’t listen to stories about him. You mustn’t get to fancy the place is haunted.”
“I am not afraid,” she said, and there was a touch of reproach in her voice. Guy paused a moment, then spoke in another tone.
“I think I have been wrong,” he said. “I wanted you to forget what you had done for me, for fear the least influence from which you have saved me should breathe on your spirit. But you ought to know that you have saved me. You have led me to that saving Presence of which you spoke. Whatever may come, whatever it may cost, yet the snare is broken, and I am delivered.”