"What? In what?"
"Only that he came out through that little gate when you were downstairs, Miss, changing the money. It was before they locked the gate--before the guard looked at the tickets, just after the boat started."
"What did he say to you?"
"He didn't say anything, Miss," replied Susan regretfully. "All he did was he looked at these bags, Miss, and stood over them till he'd read the names on the labels enough to learn them by heart, and where we were going as well. It was that that gave me such a dreadful feeling. Then the guard came and asked him what he was doing in the first-class, and looked at his ticket, and said it would be four-and-six more; and, with that, he went back again through the gate."
"Susan," I said, "I am really very angry. You ought to have told me this at once. Help me to put these things together. You know how I hate it; but we are going below."
We didn't go below; but we went as far forward as we could, and sat gazing southward until a little low moan of joy from a French-woman at my side told me that she had caught sight of the faint white ramparts of France.
As the cliffs rose higher from the sea and spread widelier to the east and west, my spirits rose and expanded with them. If Lord Ruddington was following us, there was his insult to me as well as his designs upon Susan to be dealt with. So long as we were cramped up on a ship, he had the advantage of us; but with the hugeness of France unfolding before me, I felt myself his match, and began spoiling for a fight.
I didn't have to wait long. As we entered Dieppe harbour, a sailor unlocked the gate of the second-class pen, and the inmates streamed out all over the main deck. Susan was for hurrying to swell the serried mass of Britons who invariably fight like Bushmen to be first on the gangway. But I kept her in her place, and we were among the last to disembark.
Ruddington--if it's truly he--was waiting for us at the Customs. He had got his own bag passed and chalk-marked already. I was prepared for developments, but not for what actually followed. Ignoring me, with the coolest insolence, he marched straight up to Susan, clawed carelessly at his cloth cap, and said:
"Can I be of any assistance?"