“But she wants to catch a train, miss!” she protested at last.
As Mabin was about to answer, a figure in the road outside caught her eye. The maid saw it too.
“Who—who was that?” Mabin asked quickly.
The maid, who looked rather scared, hesitated, stammered.
“Was it—Mrs. Dale?” pursued Mabin almost in a whisper.
And as she spoke, her heart sickened with a vague fear. Quickly as the form had passed by, and disappeared from sight in the deep shadows of the trees at the bend of the road below, there had been something about its rapid and noiseless flight, in the very bend of the head and flutter of the dress, which alarmed the young girl.
Besides if it was Mrs. Dale, what was she doing, at this late hour of the evening, on the road which led down to the cliff, to the sea? She must have gone out by the door at the back of the house, too;—surely a strange thing to do!
But even as these thoughts crowded into her mind, there came another and less disquieting one. The road she had taken passed the front of “Stone House;” perhaps she had gone to seek herself an interview with “Mr. Banks.”
Even as she made this suggestion to herself, and while the voice of the maid still murmured that she must go and fetch the cab, Mabin heard men’s voices in the road below.
Recognizing that of Rudolph, she stepped outside the gates, and waited with anxiety for his appearance.