And the search for the diamonds was short: for Hogarth had actually left the bag containing them on the trunk, and Frankl and O'Hara returned with it to Westring, holding it out at arm's length, one with the right, one with the left hand, like standard-bearers.
Hogarth, meantime, was striding about the elm, and once fell to his knees, adoring a vision, and once, at a fancied step, his teeth-edges chattered.
Rebekah! He called, groaned, hissed that name, while his to-and-fro ranging quickened to a trot.
And now, fancying that he heard a call “Come !” he stood startled, struck into a twisting enquiry to the four winds; but could not locate the call, ran hither and thither, saw no one.
“Come to me, little sister”, he wailed tenderly, while to swallow was a doubtful spasm for him, her name a mountain in his bosom.
When he was certain that it must be nearer ten than “nine”, he set out in the sway of a turbulent impulse to spurt for the Hall: but as he reached the point of proximity between path and park, just there where her father had stood that morning he saw her patiently waiting—ever since that “Come!”
He flew, and was about to skip up the bank, when, with forbidding arm, she cried: “Don't you approach me!”—and he stood checked and abject, one foot planted on the bank, looking up, ready to dart for her in her Oriental dress, flimsy, baggy at the girdle, her arms bare, her fingers clasped before her, making convex the two tassels of the girdle, from her ears depending circles of gold large enough to hoop with, a saffron headdress, stuck backward, showing her hair in front, falling upon a shawl which sheltered her frank recumbent shoulders. She did not see Hogarth at all, but stood averted, implacable, unapproachable, looking across the park, while Hogarth occupied a long silence in gazing up to where, like a show, she stood, illumined by the moon.
At last he sent to her the whisper, “Did you call just now? Did you say 'Come'?”
“What is it you want with me, Hogarth? You have 'summoned' me: but be very quick”.
“I told you: I am wealthier than all the princes—”