They looked at her curiously as they passed, and then a shiver ran through her as the thought struck home,—what was their object there?
“Father Brisdone!” she ejaculated. “They have been after him.”
A cold feeling of despair crept over her as she read in all this the power of the man who sought to make her his wife. He was evidently at work insidiously removing her friends, to replace them with people of his own, and more than ever she felt how helpless her position had become.
With her heart beating a slow, heavy, despairing throb, she passed on a rising piece of ground to gaze through the trees at a portion of the Pool which lay gleaming in the sunshine; when her brow contracted strangely, and her eyes half closed, as sinister thoughts, like those of some temptation, came upon her.
She was to be alone and friendless if Father Brisdone was taken away: her father had literally sold her to this man, and sooner than he should take her in his arms and call her wife she felt that she would seek for rest in the great Pool.
“Pst! pst!”
Mace turned sharply, and, gazing in the direction from which the sound had come, she saw high up amidst the bushes on the bank the rusty cassock of him who had so lately been in her thoughts.
“Dear father!” she cried. “You there?”
“Hist, child, hist! Don’t look in my direction, but stoop, pick flowers, and talk to me as you bend down.”
“Why are you there, father?” she said softly, as she obeyed his words.