“For,” said he to himself, “I mayn’t be there next time there’s a scythe across the path, and who knows but what some day it may be the well in real airnest; Dan Barnett may leave the lid off, or uncover the soft-water tank, and the poor chap be drowned ’fore he knows it.”
But when he went out he found his lodger looking so happy and contented, tying up the loose shoots of the monthly rose which ran over the cottage, that he held his tongue.
“It arn’t my business,” he argued, and he went off to meet an old crony or two in the village.
“Don’t let any one run away with the house while I’m gone, Mr John,” said old Hannah, a few minutes later. “I’m going down to the shop, and I shan’t be very long.”
Grange nodded pleasantly, and went on with his work.
That night Mary Ellis sat at her open window, sad and thoughtful, inhaling the cool, soft breeze which came through the trees, laden with woodland scents. The south-eastern sky was faintly aglow, lit up by the heralds of the rising moon, and save the barking of a dog up at the kennels, all was still.
She was thinking very deeply of her position, and of Daniel Barnett’s manner towards her the last time they met. It was plain enough that her father favoured the head-gardener’s visits, and in her misery her thoughts turned to John Grange, the tears falling softly the while. All at once she started away from the window, for, plainly heard, a low, deep sigh came from the dark shadow of the trees across the road.
Daniel Barnett? John Grange? There so late? Who could it be?
Her heart said John Grange, for the wish was father to the thought.
But she heard nothing more for a few minutes, and then in a whisper, hardly above the breath, the words—