As they sat and talked, filled with the happiness of being alone, their eyes now on the sea and now looking into each other's, Meg, who had amused himself by barking at the swooping gulls, chasing the sand-snipe and digging holes in the sand for imaginary muskrats, lifted his head and gave a short yelp. Bart, annoyed by the sound, picked up a bit of driftwood and hurled it at him, missing him by a few inches. The narrowness of the escape silenced the dog and sent him to the rear with drooping tail and ears.
Bart should have minded Meg's warning. A broad beach in the full glare of the setting sun, even when protected by a House of Refuge, is a poor place to be alone in.
A woman was passing along the edge of the bluffs, carrying a basket in one hand and a green umbrella in the other; a tall, thin, angular woman, with the eye of a ferret. It was Ann Gossaway's day for visiting the sick, and she had just left Fogarty's cabin, where little Tod, with his throat tied up in red flannel, had tried on her mitts and played with her spectacles. Miss Gossaway had heard Meg's bark and had been accorded a full view of Lucy's back covered by Jane's red cloak, with Bart sitting beside her, their shoulders touching.
Lovers with their heads together interested the gossip no longer, except as a topic to talk about. Such trifles had these many years passed out of the dress-maker's life.
So Miss Gossaway, busy with her own thoughts, kept on her way unnoticed by either Lucy or Bart.
When she reached the cross-road she met Doctor John driving in. He tightened the reins on the sorrel and stopped.
"Lovely afternoon, Miss Gossaway. Where are you from—looking at the sunset?"
"No, I ain't got no time for spoonin'. I might be if I was Miss Jane and Bart Holt. Just see 'em a spell ago squattin' down behind the House o' Refuge. She wouldn't look at me. I been to Fogarty's; she's on my list this week, and it's my day for visitin', fust in two weeks. That two-year-old of hers is all right ag'in after your sewing him up; they'll never get over tellin' how you set up all night with him. You ought to hear Mrs. Fogarty go on—'Oh, the goodness of him!'" and she mimicked the good woman's dialect. "'If Tod'd been his own child he couldn't a-done more for him.' That's the way she talks. I heard, doctor, ye never left him till daylight. You're a wonder."
The doctor touched his hat and drove on.
Miss Gossaway's sharp, rasping voice and incisive manner of speaking grated upon him. He liked neither her tone nor the way in which she spoke of the mistress of Yardley. No one else dared as much. If Jane was really on the beach and with Bart, she had some good purpose in her mind. It may have been her day for visiting, and Bart, perhaps, had accompanied her. But why had Miss Gossaway not met Miss Cobden at Fogarty's, his being the only cabin that far down the beach? Then his face brightened. Perhaps, after all, it was Lucy whom she had seen. He had placed that same red cloak around her shoulders the night of the reception at Yardley—and when she was with Bart, too.