So keen was this conviction of hers that she could hardly believe that those who, like herself, had been summoned would come. The formidable series of chances, thanks to which, little by little, she had come to the very heart of this enigmatic adventure, could not logically be repeated in the case of some other privileged being. The chain of tradition must have been broken in the other families, or have ended in fragments of the truth, as the instances of the tramp and the factory hand proved.
"No one will come," she repeated. "It is five and twenty to twelve. Consequently——"
She did not finish the sentence. A sound came from the land side, a sound near at hand, distinct from those produced by the movements of the sea or the wind. She listened. It came with an even beat which grew more and more distinct.
"Some peasant ... some wood-cutter," she thought.
No. It was something else. She made it out more clearly the nearer it came: it was the slow and measured step of a horse whose hoofs were striking the harder soil of the path. Dorothy followed its progress through one after the other of the inclosures of the old estate, then along the brick pavement. A clicking of the tongue of a rider, urging on his mount, at intervals came to her ears.
Her eyes fixed on the yawning arch Dorothy waited almost shivering with curiosity.
And suddenly a horseman appeared. An odd-looking horseman, who looked so large on his little horse, that one was rather inclined to believe that he was advancing by means of those long legs which hung down so far, and pulling the horse along like a child's toy. His check suit, his knickerbockers, his thick woolen stockings, his clean-shaven face, the pipe between his teeth, his phlegmatic air, all proclaimed his English nationality.
On seeing Dorothy he said to himself and without the slightest air of astonishment:
"Oh."
And he would have continued his journey if he had not caught sight of the clock. He pulled in his horse.