Quick as lightning she flew down the stairs, and a moment later found herself under the shade of a large yew tree. The moonlight fell broadly on the grass, but under the yew there was a shadow nearly black. As she stood there someone touched her on the arm.
“So you’ve come,” said a man’s voice in a muffled tone.
“Yes, I am here, Jim Scrivener,” panted the girl.
“We can’t talk so near the house,” answered Scrivener.
“I know a place where we’ll be safe; follow me and keep in the shade.”
He turned abruptly. Hester, trembling in every limb, followed in his wake.
CHAPTER XXIX.
“CALL ME DAWSON.”
Scrivener walked down a narrow winding path, and Hester followed him. They presently found themselves under some oak trees in a little dingle, where they were completely sheltered from view. Hester stood up to her knees in undergrowth, but Scrivener, supporting himself against the trunk of one of the trees, twisted his arm round a lower branch, and so raised himself out of the brushwood. In this position he could look down on the pale and trembling girl. Hester’s agitated face showed distinctly in the white light of the moon. The light came in checkered bars through the bare branches of the oak tree.
“That’s right,” said Scrivener, uttering a little sigh as he spoke; “we can talk freely now. No one will trace us to this hiding-place. With all their ’cuteness the police would not think that we were fools enough to stand out in a place of this sort chatting together—and if they did see us, why, it would not matter, for we are declared lovers, and the fooleries of lovers is past belief, as everybody knows.”