“Then don’t talk like that. You’ve failed me pretty often, all the same. Going?”
“Yes; I must get back.”
“What’s that—the Castor coach?”
“Yes,” said Hallam, starting. “It’s early.”
“Don’t be longer than you can help; but, I say, have you plenty of money for the journey? I’ve only a guinea or two left.”
“I have enough,” said Hallam grimly; and bidding his companion wait three hours, and if he did not come then to go back and return the next night, Hallam turned to hurry back to the town.
It was intensely dark as he approached the mill, where the stream was gurgling and plashing over the waste-water shoot. In the distance there was the oil lamp glimmering, and a light or two shone in the scattered cottages, but there was none at Thickens’s as Hallam passed.
There was a space of about a hundred yards between Thickens’s house and the next cottage, and Hallam had about half traversed this when he heard a step that seemed familiar coming, and his doubt was put an end to by a voice exclaiming, “Mind! Take care!”
Was it fate that had put this in his way?
He asked himself this as, like lightning, the thought struck him that Bayle had just come off the coach—he the sharer in the knowledge of his iniquity.