I have enough on even, and on morrow.’
Ella is inside, waiting for him, when he returns. She has heard his step, and has opened the little gate to let him in.
‘Oh, you have come! How long you have been! I thought you would never come!’ cries she, in her agitation. Then, frightened at her own impatience: ‘I—I thought perhaps you had gone away—and forgotten.’
‘There were certain things that had to be said to Mr. Barry,’ says Wyndham. He slams the gate carelessly behind him, but Ella, passing rapidly by him, turns the key in the lock.
‘It is very stupid of me, I know,’ says she, reddening at his glance of surprise. ‘But the other day I thought’—paling—‘that I saw him.’
‘Moore?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where could you see him, as you never leave this?’ He is still feeling a little sore about her determination to hold herself aloof from everyone.
‘I’—reddening—‘was up in that tree over there’—pointing to the sycamore.
‘Up there! What on earth for?’