And as he came to the remains of the old mansion he heard the laugh of Christian Cornthwaite, a little subdued, but clearly recognizable, not very far from his ears.
Bram straightened himself with a nasty shock. By the direction from which the sound came, he knew that Christian was in the ruin itself; and that he was not there by himself was plain. Who then was with him? Bram did not want to find an answer to this question; at least he told himself that he did not. The dilapidated shell of the old mansion was not the place where a lady would meet her lover. Bram had peeped into one of the deserted cottages on his way to the pit’s mouth, and had seen that, boarded up as doors and windows were, there were ruinous crannies and spaces through which a tramp or vagrant could creep to a precarious shelter.
Christian, who loved an adventure, amorous or otherwise, was evidently pursuing one now.
Bram walked down the hill, passed the cottage where he had engaged his new rooms, whistling to himself, and telling himself persistently that he was not wondering where Miss Biron had gone to that evening. And then he became suddenly mute, for, turning his head at the sound of a light footstep behind him, he saw Claire herself coming down the hill at a breathless rate.
She passed him without seeing him. Her head was bent low, and her feet seemed to fly. Bram’s heart seemed to stop beating as he watched her.
But he would not allow that he suspected her of being the person who had been in the ruined building with Christian Cornthwaite. It was true that Christian had sent her a note in which he had evidently asked her to meet him; it was true that she had acceded to the request, at her father’s instigation.
But although Bram clenched his teeth in thinking of Theodore, and felt a sudden impulse of fierce indignation against that gentleman, he would not acknowledge to himself that it was possible to connect her with an act inconsistent with the modesty of a gentlewoman.
He was not far behind when Theodore, lively, bright, and entirely recovered from the discomposure into which Bram’s unseemly violence had thrown him, came forth from the farmyard to meet his daughter.
“My dear child, I was getting quite anxious about you. Where’s Chris? I thought he would have seen you back home.”
“I left him—at the top of the hill, papa,” answered Claire in a demure voice.