Hetty smiled somewhat bitterly. “Then she is only like the rest. Everybody at Cedar is anxious about something now.”
Flora Schuyler rose, and, flinging the curtains behind her, looked out at the night. The moon was just showing through a rift in the driving cloud, and she could see the bluff roll blackly down to the white frothing of the river. She also saw a shadowy object slipping through the gloom of the trees, and fancied it was a woman; but when another figure appeared for a moment in the moonlight the first one came flitting back again.
“I believe the girl has gone out to meet somebody in the bluff,” she said.
Hetty made a little impatient gesture. “It doesn’t concern us, any way.”
Miss Schuyler sat down again and made no answer, though she had misgivings, and five or ten minutes passed silently, until there was a tapping at the door, and the maid came in, very white in the face. She clutched at the nearest chair-back, and stood still, apparently incapable of speech, until, with a visible effort, she said: “Somebody must go and send him away. He is waiting in the bluff.”
Hetty rose with a little scream, but Flora Schuyler was before her, and laid her hand upon the maid’s arm.
“Now, try to be sensible,” she said sternly. “Who is in the bluff?”
The girl shivered. “It is not my fault—I didn’t know what they wanted until the Sheriff came. I tried to tell him, but Joe saw me. Go right now, and send him away.”
Hetty was very white and trembling, but Flora Schuyler nipped the maid’s arm.
“Keep quiet, and answer just what we ask you!” she said. “Who is in the bluff?”