In a word, her lover grew colder. As yet she had no knowledge of the reason, but the fact could not be denied, and her uneasiness increased. He saw somewhat less of her, and he made no effort to determine the time of the wedding. Neither did he invite her to do so. He had come twice to see Mrs. Lintern when Cora was not by, and an account of these visits was reported by her mother.
"I don't exactly know why he dropped in either time," said Mrs. Lintern. "He kept talking on everyday matters, and never named your name. 'Twas curious, in fact, the way he kept it out. All business, but nothing about the business of marrying you. Yet there was plenty on his mind, I do believe. I should reckon as he'd come for a special purpose, but finding himself here, it stuck in his throat. He's strong with men, but weak with women. Have he told you of aught that's fretting him?"
Her daughter could remember nothing of the sort. Neither did she confess what she did know—that Waite was unquestionably cooler than of old.
"'Tis time the day was named," declared Priscilla. "And you'd better suggest it when next you meet with him."
But Cora did not do so, because there was much in Timothy's manner that told her he desired no expedition. Some time had now elapsed since last she saw him, and to-day she was going, in obedience to a note brought by a labourer, to meet him at the Rut, half a mile from Coldstone Farm. That he should have thus invited her to come to him was typical of the change in his sentiments. Formerly he would have walked or ridden to her. The tone of his brief note chilled her, but she obeyed it, and was now approaching their tryst at evening time in early September.
In a little field nigh Hawk House she heard the purr of a corn-cutting machine. It was clinking round and round, shearing at each revolution a slice from the island of oats that still stood in the midst of a sea of fallen grain. A boy drove the machine, and behind it followed Humphrey Baskerville and Rupert. The younger man had come over to help garner the crop. Together they worked, gathered up the oats, and set them in little sheaves. The waning sunlight gilded the standing oats. Now and then a dog barked and darted round the vanishing island in the midst, for there—separated from safety by half an acre of stubble—certain rabbits squatted together, and waited for the moment when they must bolt and make their final run to death.
Cora, unseen, watched this spectacle; then Mrs. Hacker appeared with a tray, on which were three mugs and a jug of cider.
The girl was early for her appointment, but she sauntered forward presently and marked Timothy Waite in the lower part of the valley.
It was the Rut's tamest hour of late summer, for the brightness of the flowers had ceased to shine; the scanty heath made little display, and autumn had as yet lighted no beacon fire. Stunted thorn trees ripened their harvest, but the round masses of the greater furze were dim; a prevalent and heavy green spread over the Rut, and the only colour contrast was that presented by long stretches of dead brake fern. The litter had been cut several weeks before and allowed to dry and ripen. It had now taken upon itself a dark colour, widely different from the richer, more lustrous, and gold-sprinkled splendour of auburn that follows natural death. The dull brown stuff was being raked together ready for the cart; and Cora, from behind a furze clump, watched her sweetheart carry immense trusses of the bracken and heave them up to the growing pile upon a wain that waited for the load. All she could see was a pair of straight legs in black gaiters moving under a little stack of the fern; then the litter was lifted, to reveal Timothy Waite.
Presently he looked at his watch and marked that the time of meeting was nearly come. Whereupon he donned his coat, made tidy his neckcloth, handed his fork to a labourer, and left the working party. He strolled slowly up the coomb along the way that she must approach, while she left her hiding-place and set out to meet him. He shook hands, but he did not kiss her, and he did not look into her eyes. Instead, he evaded her own glance, spoke quickly, and walked quickly in unconscious obedience to his own mental turmoil.