“I was going to ask the way to Deville Court,” he said. All the time his eyes never left my father’s face. For some reason or other they were full of wonder; my father’s presence seemed to terrify him.
“The way to Deville Court?” my father repeated. “I am returning in that direction. I will show it to you myself. There are several turns before you get on to the straight road.”
My father descended the bank into the road. The stranger muttered something inaudible, which my father ignored.
“We had better start,” he said, calmly. “It is rather a long way.”
The man whom my father had called Stephen hesitated and drew back.
“The young lady,” he suggested, faintly—“she will come with us.”
“The young lady has an engagement in another direction,” he said, with his eyes fixed on me. “I want you, Kate, to call upon Mr. Charlsworth and tell him to be sure to be at church to-night. You can tell him why it is important.”
There was a ring in my father’s tone, and a light in the glance which he flashed upon me which forbade any idea of remonstrance. Yet at the thought of leaving those two men together a cold chill seemed to pass through all my veins. Something seemed to tell me that this was no ordinary meeting. The man Berdenstein’s look of terror as he had recognized my father was unmistakable. Even now he was afraid to go with him. Yet I was powerless, I dared not disobey. Already the two men were walking side by side. I was left alone, and the farmhouse to which my father had bidden me go lay in altogether a different direction. I stood and watched them pass along the lane together. Then I went on my errand. There was nothing else I could do.
I reached home in about an hour. Alice met me at the door.