‘Don’t be a fool, ‘Lizer,’ said Miss Duck, harshly. ‘There’s nothing to cry about. He hasn’t done it yet. And he isn’t going to!’’
If Mr. Duck had been present he would have accepted his fate there and then, and resigned Mrs. Turvey without a struggle. Fortunately, he still believed that he could evade the watchful guardianship of Georgina, and did not allow his little plans to be disconcerted.
CHAPTER VI.
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.
At the lodge-gates of an old-fashioned country mansion, which stands in a well-wooded park shut in among the Surrey hills, a young girl was waiting one winter night. Every now and then she would turn and glance towards the house, as though she expected some one to come from it.
Twice she fancied she heard a footstep and stepped out into the shadow of the roadway, and twice she found her faney had deceived her.
But the third time it was no fancy. There was a well-known step upon the broad gravel path, and in the dim light she could see the figure of a man coming rapidly towards her. She gave a nervous glance towards the lodge-window, then darted out into the roadway, and, walking in the shadow of the hedge that skirted the park, reached a spot where the bend of the road would hide her from the view of any one looking out of the lodge-gates.
The man, walking rapidly, soon caught her up.
She ran to him, and, looking up into his face, questioned him eagerly with her eyes.
He shook his head sorrowfully.
‘Failure, Bess,’ he said. ‘I must leave this place to-night.’