Nobody, however, knew exactly what Carrie Denham thought of it, although it was evident that she preferred him to Aylmer. When at last he spoke his mind to her, she listened gravely with a slightly flushed face and a thoughtful look in her eyes.
"If you are wise," she said quietly, "you will not press me for an answer now. You can wait, at least, until this time to-morrow. Then I shall be outside on the steps of the terrace."
It was not very encouraging, but Leland made her a little inclination.
"If that is your wish, I must try to be patient," he said.
CHAPTER V
NO ESCAPE
It was towards the middle of the next afternoon when Carrie Denham leaned upon the rails of the little path outside the grey walls of the garden at Barrock-holme. From where she stood she could see the narrower and unprotected way along which she had ventured with Leland a few weeks earlier, and she could not help remembering his quiet glance of interrogation when he had come upon it suddenly. She and Jimmy had often crossed that somewhat perilous ledge in their younger days, the more often, in fact, because it had been forbidden to them. Though it was, of course, new to Leland, he had displayed no hesitation when once she had made her wishes plain. This had pleased her at the time, since it suggested that he understood her resolution was equal to his own; but now she brushed the recollection aside, for just then she felt she almost hated him.
Close by, a narrow flight of steps hewn out of the dripping rock led down into the ravine, and she watched with a curious sense of strained expectancy the path which wound among the silvery birches from the foot of them to the mossy stepping-stones round which the Barrock flashed. She knew this was unwise, and that she could not escape from what lay before her, but hope dies hard when one is young, and there was still lurking at the back of her mind a faint belief that after all something might happen to stave off the impending disaster. If so, it would be only fitting that it should result from the efforts of the man in whom she had once had faith and confidence, though neither now was so strong as it had been.
A drowsy quietness brooded over Barrock-holme. The men were away shooting, and the women had driven to inspect some relics of the Roman occupation among the fells. She herself had made excuses for remaining behind.
There was not a movement among the birch leaves still hanging here and there, flecks of pale gold among the lace-like twigs beneath her, and the murmur of the gently swirling water emphasised the silence of the hollow. She could hear a squirrel shaking the beech-mast down, and the patter of the falling nuts rose sharply distinct from the thin carpet of yellow leaves. Then she felt her heart beat as the sound of footsteps reached her ears. The man she had once believed in was coming, and, if there was any way out of the difficulties that threatened her, it was his part to find it.