The color rose in Betty’s face, softly, sweetly, her eyes shone.
“And so do I!” she said; “lead on, I will follow—and alone.”
“Come, thin,” he said at last, “’tis a long way an’ the place isn’t fit fer a foine lady, but he’s there—tho’, by the Virgin, I don’t know what he’ll say ter me fer bringing ye!”
As he spoke he cast a glance back at the chair and its bearers waiting at the mouth of the lane, the men staring after their mistress, and with them a knot of idlers who had gathered to watch the countess. Lady Clancarty turned her back upon them.
“Lead on!” she commanded, impatient and imperious.
Denis led the way down the narrow lane, out of sight of the group at the mercer’s shop, and into another byway, and so on through the outskirts of Newmarket. He did not take the public road but struck across the fields, passing close to the spot where Lord Clancarty had fought the duel. Lady Betty shuddered as they approached it. They were out of sight of the last straggling houses now, crossing the meadows; the sun shone as it had upon that day when she had walked first with Clancarty, but there was more of a touch of autumn upon the scene. Here, beyond the light green turf, was a field of stubble, and there, in the green hedgerow, were yellow leaves; and the stream, too, that flowed across the meadows, had brown depths and shadows where the pebbles lay thickest, and the purple distance took on gray.
They had left the open and were skirting a little woodland where the dry leaves rustled overhead, and once she heard the “kourre, kourre!” of the pigeons.
Whither was he going? Lady Betty wondered. The place grew more and more solitary; they followed a path, but one so little used that briars fell across it and one of them tore her frock: but she went on fearlessly, for never did a braver heart throb in a woman’s bosom. Her spirit was intrepid. She looked about her through the sparsely growing trees and saw long distances without a sign of life or habitation, and still Denis plodded on and she followed, pity and love and remorse growing in her heart at every step. Her lover and her husband in poverty and obscurity, a proscribed rebel, and she rich. Nothing could have appealed so to her full heart. The thought stung her and the tears gathered on her dark lashes.
As Denis had predicted, the walk was a long one, but she did not heed it, she kept steadily on behind him; and at last, through an opening in the trees, she saw two horses grazing in a little strip of greensward, and beyond, the lonely farmhouse. As her guide turned towards it Betty caught her breath and stood still—for a single moment—the place was so poor, so dark, so uninviting, and the vicinity of Newmarket swarmed with banditti; even when the king’s coach took the road it had to be strongly guarded. This old, weather-stained brown house, with half its window shutters broken, the green moss on its slanting gables, and the strong, iron-bound door, with the broken stone before it, was sad and forbidding enough without the silence and the woodland shadows that enfolded it. Betty stood and stared at it apprehensively, and then she thought of Clancarty. Her hesitation was so soon over that the man, her guide, was scarcely aware of it. He went on steadily, hearing her light step rustling on the fallen leaves behind him, and at last he stopped at the door and waited.
“Is he here?” she whispered.