The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard.
Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again.
“Even if Kitty sees us now, I don’t care,” she said. “She daren’t tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin’. He ought to have married her sister.”
“Poof!” tittered Angèle. “Who heeds a domestic?”
Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:
“Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?”
Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.
“Shut up, you fool!” hissed Frank. “Do you want the whole village to know where we are?”
Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.
“Why did you leave me?” he demanded angrily. “You must come home at once. It is past ten o’clock.”