“She’s gone to meet him. I thought she would. I’d have let off half a dozen scoundrels to give that lass her heart’s desire; that I would!”
And he watched her till a rising in the meadow ground, and a thick, flowering hedge, hid her from sight.
After a few minutes’ arguing with herself, Olivia, who guessed the reason of Ned Mitchell’s suggestion of a walk in the fields, decided that she ought without delay to let Vernon Brander know the result of the interview between his brother and the colonist. So she darted through the gate and across the road with the agility of a deer, in spite of the oppressive air. So excited was she, so full of joy at the turn affairs had taken, that she almost ran along the footpath, beside the sweet-scented hedges, with an occasional little leap or bound of most undignified happiness. Thus it happened that when she came unexpectedly face to face with Vernon Brander on rounding a thicket of bushes and small trees, she was springing into the air with her face radiant with delight, and a soft song—something about “birds” and “love”—upon her lips. Vernon, on his side, looked, if anything, even more haggard and woebegone than usual. Both stopped short, and Olivia, who had become on the instant very subdued, drew a deep breath of confusion.
“Mr. Brander,” she began, in a cool, almost cold, voice, “I—I—er, I have just met Ned Mitchell, and I think you ought to know what he says.”
“For Heaven’s sake, yes: tell me!”
“He is going to hush it all up, on condition that your brother leaves the country altogether.”
Vernon drew a deep breath of relief, and almost reeled against the fence which protected the thicket on one side.
“Thank God!” he whispered.
And he put one hand to his face as if to shut out the fearful picture his imagination and his fears had been conjuring up. Olivia waited impatiently as long as she could. At last when she could bear this neglect no longer, she said, rather tartly—
“Mrs. Brander will have to go too.”