“But do you think you can travel alone, Eddy, with your poor wounded hand?” asked Eva.
“Oh yes; the splints keep it safe, and I shall only be two days or so away.”
They suffered him to fulfil his whim, although they felt that if he saw Violet, the meeting could hardly fail to be full of pain.
It was deep in autumn when he started, and arriving at Ildown, took up his abode in the little village inn. He kept himself as free from observation as he could, and begged the landlady, who recognised him, not to mention his arrival to any one. She had seen him on his former visit, and remembered favourably his genial good-humour and affable bearing. He told her frankly that he had come to say good-bye to Miss Home, whom he might not see again; but he did not wish to go to the house—could the landlady tell him anything about their movements?
“Why, yes; I do happen to know,” she said, “and I suppose there can’t be no harm in telling you, for I heard Master Cyril say as how they were all a-going a-gipseying to-morrow in the wood near the King’s Oak.”
“And when do you think they will start?”
“Oh, they’ll start at ten, sir, in the morning, for I’m a-going to lend ’em my little trap to carry the perwisions in, and that.”
This would suit Kennedy capitally, and musing on the meeting of the morrow, he sank into a doze in the armchair. A whispering awoke him, and he was far from reassured by overhearing the following colloquy:—
“Who be that in the parlour?” asked a rustic.
“Oh, that’s the young gentleman as wer’ Miss Violet’s sweetheart,” said the barmaid confidentially; “nobody don’t know of it, but I heard the Missus a-saying so.”