John kept invisible until the other was gone; then, full of wonder at a circumstance quite beyond his experience, he left the farm and entered the Moor. The moon shone clearly, and there was frost in the air. Dew glimmered grey upon the dying herbage; and below in the valley waters murmured softly from a dense cloud of silver mist that hid them.
Now the object of Malherb's secret pilgrimage was one which he would sooner have perished than declare. The man's soft heart prompted him upon this mission; a simple matter of sentiment, hidden jealously from every eye, took him forth into the night. The morning kiss that he gave to Grace was always formal and cold; and if sometimes he stroked her hair or patted her soft cheek, he instantly assumed an attitude of indifference or said some harsh word, as though contemptuous of his own weakness. Annabel Malherb, affectionate and warm-hearted though she was, possessed far more common-sense and infinitely more self-possession in matters of human affection than did her husband. She showed all that she felt and very properly passed for a gentle and a tender-hearted woman; he secreted his emotions and banked up volcanic fires out of sight. Thus he suffered as only those at once self-conscious and deeply feeling can suffer.
Upon returning from Exeter, Mr. Malherb supped with his wife and heard how Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had called upon his homeward way after hunting and taken a dish of tea and a cordial.
"'Twas a very good run—one hour and twenty minutes. They killed upon East Dart, near Dury, and my lady Bastard had the brush."
"What of Grace?"
"Sir Thomas saw her once, well up. Doubtless she returned with the Fentons to Holne. Her things were sent in good time, for Dinah Beer went in to market there and took 'em with her."
"Yes, yes, of course," said the farmer, and spoke of other matters. Yet sleep refused to close his eyes; and while Annabel slumbered placidly enough, well knowing that her daughter was safe and happy, the father, equally sure of the fact in his reason, found a paternal instinct above reason keeping him awake and restless. He tossed to the right and left; he swore half-sleeping; then he started into wakefulness and saw his window full of moonlight. The illumination decided him. With a shamed face he stole from the side of his wife, and ten minutes later was ready to take the road. Creeping out of doors, he went to the stable, saddled a hack and rode off towards Holne village with a sulky and guilty satisfaction. The thought of any human eye upon him had driven him into a furious passion at once. He was ashamed of himself, yet well content to be upon this business.
Malherb trotted the four miles to Holne, fastened up his horse at the edge of a wood, and proceeded cautiously to the dwelling of the Fentons. Avoiding the front of the house, he presently reached the back premises. All was still, and he passed noiselessly to the window of the stables. The occasional thud of hoofs and snort of nostrils reached him from here. Moonlight illuminated the interior, and Malherb without difficulty saw what he wished to see. His daughter's hunter stood comfortable and asleep in its stall. For that sight alone the man had come, because it revealed to him how all was well with Grace. Some great dog bayed, and leaped to the length of its chain with a rush and rattle, but before a sleepy voice from above bade it be silent, Malherb was far away. He hurried back through the trees to his horse, then returned homewards, happy. Other such human secrets as this were locked in the casket of his heart, and now, thinking upon the past, he remembered deeds to his account as a young husband and father. He growled impatiently and shook his head, for it vexed him that God's self should know those things.
Into the thread of the night's incidents Malherb anon returned, but for the moment it is necessary that we follow John Lee. Proceeding along the accustomed way, he hid closely where, beneath the inky blackness of a rock's shadow, it was possible for him to survey the shining vast, himself unseen. The sky twinkled with frosty stars to the horizon; the moon sailed high overhead. Then, almost before he had settled to his vigil, there came a sound out of the night, a rhythm of feet, that bore a lean grey figure who seemed woven of light and mist. It crept towards him; it promised to pass along the sheep-track within five yards of him; and Lee, with a tremor of boyish fear suddenly chilling his bones, shrank into the darkness and scarcely dared to breathe. Then Lovey Lee went past, and the light was in her eyes where they glimmered out of her white face, like jewels set in marble. Her breath came a little short, for she was moving fast. As one in sleep she swept along, staring before her, until her tall shape was swallowed up again within the pearly dimness of the Moor. The sound of her footsteps died upon his ear; the vision of her faded.
John Lee gave his grandmother a few minutes' start before he followed with extreme caution. For two miles he stalked the shadow of her, then, perceiving that she must presently enter a deep gorge known as Hangman's Hollow, where certain ruins of old mining works and blowing-houses still stood, he made a wide detour, mended his pace, and got to the neck of the coombe before her. Here he concealed himself again beside one of the rotting buildings, formerly used for smelting of tin. He hid behind a broken wall, and through a chink in it kept watch upon the ravine down which he had just hastened. Upon his left yawned a disused gravel-pit, where a labourer had hanged himself to a rowan tree and so given this sinister name to the spot. Around about, dying brake-fern spread wanly under the night; and here and there flashed the white of a rabbit's scut as it bobbed from its hole to the open and back again. On the watcher's right hand, deep sunk into the heather-clad earth, the bulk of an old blowing-house still appeared; but one side had bulged and broken out, so that the whole stood like a shattered corpse of some habitation, and shone pallid there in its pall of grey lichens and rusty moss.