Too Late.
There was no time to lose if he intended to be present at the sale, so hastily putting a few things in a bag, Geoffrey bade Madge good-by, and brought a smile in her thin, worn face as he took up the little one and kissed it, giving it a toss, and setting it off crowing and laughing before replacing it in Bessie’s arms.
“Any commission for town, ladies?” he said; “ribbons, laces, or what do you say to a new hood for the squire here?”
Just then the dark face of old Prawle appeared at the door, and, reminding him of his commission, he started off at once to catch the coach.
“It’s a rum world,” he said, as he gazed at the smokeless chimneys of the great mine as he went on, and then, leaning more to his task, he began to picture the place busy once more, with its panting engines, and the click and rattle of the ore-reducing machinery.
“I’ll show old Penwynn yet,” he said to himself, “that there’s money to be made out of the place. Poor old fellow, though, it will be a grievous disappointment to him, and he will feel it deeply.”
He walked on with his eyes still fixed on the promontory upon which the mine was standing, and so immersed was he in thought that he almost ran up against two people before he saw them.
“I beg—”
He would have said “your pardon,” but the words froze upon his lips, and he went by feeling half stunned; for the couple he had passed were Rhoda Penwynn and Tregenna, the former looking deadly pale as his eyes encountered hers for a moment, the latter calm, self-possessed, and supercilious.
Geoffrey could not trust himself to look back, but tore along the cliff path at a tremendous rate, feeling ready at any moment to break into a run, but refraining by an effort.