Uncle Luke had shown during the troubles of the past how he could throw aside his eccentricity and become a useful, helpful counsellor, and it seemed the natural thing to send a message up to him, and beg him to come down. Better still, to save time, she would run up there first.
Liza had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Madelaine was well on her way, after stealing silently out of the house.
The effort to be calm was unavailing, for a wild fit of excitement was growing upon her, and instead of walking up the steep cliff path, she nearly ran.
Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fishing off some rocky point.
She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the cottage, with Leslie’s house and mine chimney far up at the back, she stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at work, suggesting that after all, this was some mythical invention on the part of the servant, for there, stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle Luke’s cottage awaiting her coming.
Chapter Fifty Three.
Her Defender.
“Miss Van Heldre!”