What could it mean—at that hour, too? Brace Norton hesitated no longer; the thoughts of risk, and of being better on his way homeward, were dismissed, and using all the caution he could, he tried to follow the man.
But in vain the darkness prevented him from even catching another glimpse; but that he was in the right track he knew, by coming suddenly upon a pair of boots upon the grass, against one of which he kicked.
This seemed to point to the fact that it must be some one who well knew the grounds, or he would not have trusted to the finding again of his boots in the darkness. But what could it mean? Was there some nefarious design afloat?—a robbery, for instance—and was this man in league with more in the house?
These, and many such questions, troubled Brace Norton, as, momentarily growing more and more excited, he strode on, avoiding flower-bed and rustic vase, cautiously leaping gravel paths; and, at last, after passing along two sides of the great square mansion, standing thoughtful and discomfited.
On the side where he stood, there was on his left the old moat—the moat which, in the front, had been expanded into the lake, advantage having been taken of a low-lying tract of land by the baronet, to have it flooded. The water, then, except on one side, shut in the pleasure grounds, a wall enclosed them on the other; and, unless some door happened to be open—which was unlikely at such an hour—the stranger was either somewhere about the grounds, or had returned by way of the bridge.
This last idea Brace dismissed at once, and determining that the stranger must be on the other side of the house, he began to retrace his steps, when his ear was saluted by a faint rustle, as of a body passing amongst dry twigs.
Cautiously making his way in the required direction, Brace crept over the grass for perhaps twenty yards, and then he stopped, listening eagerly, but only to hear the loud, laboured beating of his own heart.
It must have been something more than a simple desire to satisfy his curiosity, or to gaze up at some window which he might imagine was that of Isa Gernon. Had he been asked, he would have owned to a strange feeling of attraction, drawing him on and on to what proved the most exciting adventure of his life. He knew, though, that he ran great risks, and that, if seen, his visit was sure to be misinterpreted; but another minute had hardly elapsed ere, like his sire in bygone days, he could only yield to the intense desire of affording help where he believed others were in peril.
For suddenly, from a corner of the house, where a dense mass of evergreens made more black the shade, came a strange, low, grating noise—a sound that he had never before heard, but which he attributed to the right cause upon the instant; and then, going down upon hands and knees, he tried to govern into regularity his laboured, panting breathing, as he crept cautiously towards the spot from whence the sound had arisen.