“Good-day, and bless you, my son!” cried Poll eagerly. “I shan’t forget this.”
“I was foolish to give it to her,” said Leslie to himself, as he watched the woman’s slowly retiring figure; and then he turned his eyes in the direction of the Vines’, as it stood peaceful and bright-looking on its shelf by the cliff, across the intervening valley.
“Might venture to-night. Surely they would not think it intrusive? Yes: I will.”
Duncan Leslie felt better after coming to this determination, and went busily about his work at the mine.
Poll Perrow went straight down into the little town and then up the path at the back, trudging steadily along and at a very good pace, till she saw about fifty yards in front a figure going in the same direction.
“Miss Madlin!” she said to herself. “I’d know her walk anywhere. And all in black, too. Ah!”
Poll Perrow stopped short with her mouth open.
“How horrid!” she ejaculated. “It killed him then, after all. Poor Master Van Heldre! Poor Master Harry Vine!”
She rubbed a tear away with her rough brown hand. Then starting up, she made the mussels in her basket rattle.
“What nonsense!” she said. “Why, Master Crampton told me last night, and down the street, that Master Van Heldre was much better, and he couldn’t ha’ died and Miss Madlin gone in mourning since last night. They couldn’t ha’ got the gownd made.”