Tom Sedley now for the first time began to feel a little embarrassed. The general privacy of the place, the fact that the jetty, and in point of law the strand itself, here, belonged to Malory, from which the private door which still stood open, showed that the lady had emerged—all these considerations made him feel as if he were guilty of an impertinence, and very nearly of a trespass.
The lady stood quite still, looking across the water. Tom Sedley was upon the road that skirts the wall of Malory, in the shadow of the great trees. It would not have done to walk straight across the shingle to the spot where the lady stood, neither could he place himself so as to intercept her return to the doorway, directly so, as a less obvious stratagem, he made a detour, and sauntering along the water's edge like a man intent solely on the picturesque, with a beating heart he approached the female, who maintained her pose quite movelessly until he approached within a few steps.
Then she turned, suddenly, revealing an old and almost agonized face, that looked, in the intense moonlight, white, and fixed as if cut in stone. There is something ludicrous in the sort of shock which Tom Sedley experienced. He stood staring at the old lady with an expression which, if she had apprehended it, would not have flattered her feminine self-esteem, if any of that good quality remained to her.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the old woman, with a nervous eagerness, drawing near. "But pray, can you see a sail in that direction, a yawl, sir, they call it, just there?"—she pointed—"I fancied about two miles beyond that vessel that lies at anchor there? I can't see it now, sir, can you?"
She had come so close that Sedley could see not only the deep furrows, but the finely etched wrinkles about the large eyes that gazed on him, and from him to the sea, with an imploring stare.
"There's no sail, ma'am, between us and Pendillion," said Sedley, having first raised his hat deferentially; for did not this strange old lady with her gray mantle drawn over her head, nevertheless, represent Malory, and was not Malory saddened and glorified by the presence of that beautiful being whom he had told himself a thousand times since morning service, he never, never could forget?
"Ha, ha! I thought I saw it, exactly, sir, in that direction; pray look more carefully, sir, my old eyes tire, and fail me."
"No, ma'am, positively nothing there. How long ago is it since you first saw it?"
"Ten—twenty—minutes, it must be."
"A yawl will run a good way in that time, ma'am," said Tom with a little shake of his head, and a smile. "The yawl they had at Ware last year would make eight knots an hour in this breeze, light as it is. She might have been up to Bryll by this time, or down to Pendrewist, but there's no sail, ma'am, either way."