With his heart in his mouth Bram waited. Would she come out to him? She stood up, with the firelight shining on her figure, but leaving her face in shadow, so that he could not tell what expression she wore.
He wondered whether she knew him. After waiting for a few moments he tapped again at the window, advancing his face as close as possible to the glass. Then, as she still did not move, he stepped back, and was going towards the door, when by a quick gesture she checked him, and seemed to intimate that he was to wait for her to come out to him.
At the same moment she left the room.
Bram waited.
When some minutes had passed, and still she did not come out, he began to feel alarmed, to wonder whether she had given him the slip. He walked round to the back, and saw that the cottage, which was one of a row of three, had a good garden behind it, and that there was a path which led from the garden across the fields.
Presently he went round to the front again, and knocked at the door. It was opened after the second knock, by a very respectable-looking old woman, with a kindly, pleasant face.
“Is Miss Biron staying here?” asked Bram, wondering whether Claire was using her own name or passing under another.
But the answer put to flight any doubts.
“Yes, sir,” said the woman at once. “She is staying here, but she isn’t in at present. She’s just this minute gone out.”
Bram felt his blood run cold. Claire was avoiding him then! The woman seemed to know of no reason for this sudden disappearance, and went on to ask—