They parted, and none too soon, for, hammer in hand, the Major had just plunged down into a gully when Robson caught sight of a tiny cloud of smoke rising above a ridge before him.
Quick as thought he threw himself down among the heather, and lay peering between two tufts, till Jessop came into sight directly after, puffing away at a big cigar as he walked sharply along the track, passing the spot where the clerk lay, and evidently going in the direction of the cottage.
Robson looked uneasy, and his forehead began to wrinkle with the thoughts which entered his brain. He was puzzled at first; then suspicious; and at last determined.
He waited until Jessop was well out of sight, and with his mind made up, he was about to scramble to his feet, but he dropped down again, feeling sure he must have been seen, for he was conscious of a figure higher up the slope, coming slowly towards him; and soon after Sturgess, with his arm still in a sling, came close by, went down to the shelf-track, and there seated himself in a nook amongst some ferns. This forced the young clerk to slowly worm himself along among the heath and whortleberry tufts for a couple of hundred yards before the rising ground was well between them, when he went off at a sharp walk in the direction taken by the Major.
Meanwhile Jessop had gone on smoking heavily till he reached the river side, where he stopped gazing down into the sparkling water, evidently thinking deeply, and drawing hard at his cigar, till it was nearly done, when he threw it to fall with a loud hiss into the stream.
Then, with a quiet, satisfied aspect he went on for a few steps, and turned up the tiny gully hard by the Major’s garden.
Fortune favoured him, for Dinah was seated in the shady porch working; and she started up in alarm as he came close up.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, with a smile, and holding out his hand. “Surely you have not forgotten me?”
“No,” said Dinah, recovering herself, though her heart beat heavily from apprehension. “You called here once before.”
“To be sure I did; but you will shake hands?”