“If you'll help me.”
How much she implied oy “help me,” he did not stop to question.
“We've no time to lose.” He spoke hurriedly. “Where's the safest place of hiding?”
“My old one. A hut——”
“I know,” he interrupted. “I'll go ahead to make sure the way is clear; you follow at a distance. Keep me in sight. If I look back, take cover.”
Without more ado, he turned away, retracing his steps to the camp.
He attempted to walk jauntily, like a nature-lover who had risen early to enjoy the first freshness of the morning. Here and there he stooped to pluck a blackberry. He pulled a sprig of heather for his lapel. He flattered himself that, if he were being watched, his conduct was artistically normal.
For all his display of carelessness, he advanced warily. There was nothing in the billowy expanse of greenness that escaped him. Somewhere within a radius of four miles the Major was waiting to make his pounce. He might be crouched in the next patch of bracken. He might be lying behind the nearest mound. The dapper, gallant-appearing old gentleman, who bore such a striking resemblance to Lord Roberts, assumed the terror of nemesis in his imagination. He seemed everywhere and nowhere. He would pop up, suave and neatly bespatted, at the moment when he was least expected.
He gazed straight before him, not daring to look back, but he never lost consciousness of the fateful woman following him stealthily as a shadow. And always there was the memory of the other woman with the gentle eyes and shining hair.
He reached the camp. It looked lonely as a graveyard. Rows of hutments, bleached to a bluish whiteness, gleamed in the morning sunshine. The downs curled above it like an emerald wave on the point of breaking.