She looked round wildly, and started as a sharp tap was heard close at hand.
“Am I growing such a nervous, feeble coward,” she said, “that I am afraid of a rabbit? What have I to fear from him?”
She laughed at her weak folly, and to prove to herself that she was no longer under the influence of dread she took her book and opened it at random, but did not read a word, for her musings began again.
“It is excusable,” she thought. “All these years of dread of discovery, of some end coming to their plans, and for the sake of what? A miserable gilded life of luxury that is hateful to me and makes me shiver when I look into his pleading eyes. He loves me and would marry me to-morrow in his ignorance; and then what would he say when he knew the truth? I cannot bear it; there must—there shall be an end. It is not life; it is one miserable nightmare of fear.”
She sprang to her feet, uttering a faint cry of horror, and turned to run. For there was some truth in her suspicions; she had been followed. There was a quick step behind, and she had run some little distance before, glancing back, she saw that it was not James Clareborough, but Chester, standing beneath the trees which had sheltered her, and now gazing after her with a look of anger and despair.
She stopped, and he came up to her side.
“Have I grown so hateful to your sight?” he said bitterly.
“No, no!” she cried, holding out her trembling hand, which he seized and pressed passionately to his lips. “I thought it was James Clareborough.”
“Then he has dared to insult you again?” said Chester, angrily.
“No, no; indeed, no,” she cried.