‘I think there’s a little bit on the dresser shelf,’ returned the old woman; and, dropping her end of the parcel, she went across the kitchen.
This was Rosalie’s chance. She was white to the very lips, but she did not flinch. With cold, trembling fingers, she hid away the note in the breast-pocket of the coat; he would be sure to find it there.
Bithey discovered nothing, and presently, the packet being secured, Rosalie betook herself homewards.
‘I ’ve done it!’ she said, pausing when she reached the solitude of the downs. ‘Thank God! I ’ve done it! It will be all right now.’
But it was not surprising that in the midst of her self-congratulations on having so successfully barred herself out of Eden she should once more melt into tears.
CHAPTER X
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met, or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.Burns.
The cutting and making of Rosalie’s hay had been proceeding briskly in the Church Meadow; the last swathes had fallen, and every available pair of hands had been called upon to assist in the work, for experienced weather-prophets had foretold gloomily that the actual ‘fine spell’ could not be expected to last.
Towards evening on the second day Farmer Sharpe stood alone in the centre of the field; mopped, for the hundredth time, his perspiring brow, and cast a contemplative look round.
’T was past seven o’clock; the men had gone home some time before, but he had remained to take a final survey of the scene of their labours.