“I will walk down the hill with you,” announced Miss Miranda with somewhat disconcerting suddenness. “I have some things to take to Mrs. Donovan at the foot of the lane. I promised her some of my cabbage plants.”
“We will take them,” chorused the two conspirators, speaking together with such promptness that any one less preoccupied than Miss Miranda might have guessed that some project was on foot.
“No, I must see her myself,” she persisted and set out with them, to their ill-concealed dismay.
“It is not very late and we can come back after she has left us,” David found opportunity to say before Miss Miranda joined them with the cabbage plants.
They went down the hill without much of their usual talking and laughter, for Miss Miranda appeared absorbed in her own thoughts, and her two companions, perhaps a little appalled by their undertaking, seemed to have not much to say. They bade her good-night at Mrs. Donovan’s door with suspicious alacrity and, having seen it safely closed, turned once more up the lane. By David’s advice they were to pass the cottage, climb higher up the hill and find the spot where the boundary wall was nearest the ruins of the house.
“If we wait by the pool,” he explained, “we might not see anything. It might not come near, whatever It is.”
Betsey shivered a little. She was ashamed of the thrills that were running through her and the tendency of her teeth to chatter unless she kept them firmly closed.
They walked briskly, but some one who came behind them was walking quicker still. A man passed them as they trudged upward, a man quite indistinguishable in the dark, save for the faint white of his collar and of his face. Betsey could make out that he was a broad person, not very tall, with an alert, though rather heavy step. They lagged a little after he had passed, to let him get well ahead of them so that they could go on with the discussion of their plans unheard.
“Usually it’s not very late when the light comes,” David said. “I don’t believe we will have very long to wait.”
In spite of his haste, the man who had passed them must have lingered a moment at the Reynolds’ gate, for he was only just opening it and going up the walk as they came by. The light from the cottage windows fell upon him as he approached the door and showed his figure more clearly although his face was still hidden. Betsey looked at him curiously but David seemed too much occupied to give him more than a passing glance. They left the lane, skirted the wall and came finally to the place they sought.