Then a faintly-heard scratching noise, as of a thorn passing over a garment.
“He’s coming,” thought Marjorie, “coming, and this way;” and she leaned forward in time to see a figure, bent down so low that it seemed to be going on all fours, dart silently from behind one clump of brambles away to her left, and glide into the shelter of another.
So silently was this act performed that for the moment the watcher asked herself if she had not been deceived.
The answer came directly in the re-appearance of the figure, gliding into sight and creeping on till it was in shelter, hiding not a dozen yards from where she crouched; and she shrank back with her heart beginning to beat heavily, while she knew that the blood was coming and going in her cheeks.
“No; I’m not afraid of Caleb Kent,” she thought to herself; and her eyes flashed again, and in imagination she seemed to see once more the opening where the lodge stood. Her face grew pale, and a curious shrinking sensation attacked her as she recalled Rolph’s face, his eyes searching hers with such a bitter look of contempt and scorn.
Then instantly she seemed to be gazing at herself in the library, clinging to her cousin, till he violently wrenched himself from her, leaving her hopeless and crushed; and she longed bitterly for the opportunity to make some one suffer for this.
“No,” she said to herself, “I am not afraid of Caleb Kent;” and she crouched there, seeing every movement, and in a few moments realised that some one must be coming, for, with the activity of a cat, the young half-gipsy, half-poacher, began to move softly back, as if to keep the clump of brambles between him and whoever it was that was passing.
Marjorie knew directly after that this must be the case, for she could hear the dull sound of a step, and she strained forward a little to try and see, but shrank back again with her heart beginning to beat rapidly, as she realised that, all intent upon the person passing in front, Caleb Kent had no thought for what might be behind, and he had begun to back rapidly away from the clump which had hidden him, to hide in the safer refuge already occupied.
She knew that the step must be her cousin’s, and that he was going over to Lindham to seek Judith.
“Suppose,” she asked herself, “he should come nearer and see her hiding—apparently in company with Caleb Kent—what would he say?”