“No, no, dear; you two must not meet. Now then, listen to me.”
“Some day, little bird,” he said, lifting her from his knee, as he rose; then kissing her tenderly he extricated himself from her clinging hands as gently as he could, and rushed out.
“O, Pierce, Pierce!” she cried. “Stay, stay!”
But the only answer to her call as she ran to the door was the heavy beat of his feet in the gloom of the misty evening.
“And if they meet he’ll find out all,” she wailed piteously. She paused, waiting for a few moments, and then searched in her pocket and brought out a tiny silver whistle, which she placed in the bosom of her dress, after flinging the ribbon which was in its ring over her head.
A minute later, with her cloak thrown on and hood drawn over her head, she had slipped out of the cottage, and was running down the by-lane in the direction of the Manor House.
Chapter Twenty.
The soft light of the moon attracted Kate to her bedroom window, where she drew up the blind, and after standing gazing at the silvery orb for some minutes, she unfastened and threw open the casement, drew a chair forward, to sit there letting the soft air of the late autumn night give its coolness to her aching brow.