They have sallied forth to meet disappointment. The night is black as Erebus, and the girl gone out of sight. Nor can they tell which way she has taken; and to inquire might get them “guyed,” if not worse. Besides, they see no one of whom inquiry could be made. A dark shadow passes them, apparently the figure of a man; but so dimly descried, and going in such rapid gait, they refrain from hailing him.
Not likely they will see more of the “monstrously crummy creetya” that night—they may on the morrow somewhere—perhaps at the little chapel close by.
Registering a mental vow to do their devotions there, and recalling the bottle of fizz left uncorked on the counter they return to finish it.
And they drain it dry, gulping down several goes of B-and-S, besides, ere ceasing to think of the “devilish nice gal,” on whose dainty little fist they would so like fitting kid gloves.
Meanwhile, she, who has so much interested the dry goods gentlemen, is making her way along the road which leads past the Widow Wingate’s cottage, going at a rapid pace, but not continuously. At intervals she makes stops, and stands listening—her glances sent interrogatively to the front. She acts as one expecting to hear footsteps, or a voice in friendly salutation—and see him saluting, for it is a man.
Footsteps are there besides her own, but not heard by her, nor in the direction she is hoping to hear them. Instead, they are behind, and light, though made by a heavy man. For he is treading gingerly as if on eggs—evidently desirous not to make known his proximity. Near he is, and were the light only a little clearer she would surely see him. Favoured by its darkness he can follow close, aided also by the shadowing trees, and still further from her attention being all given to the ground in advance, with thoughts preoccupied.
But closely he follows her, but never coming up. When she stops he does the same, moving on again as she moves forward. And so for several pauses, with spells of brisk walking between.
Opposite the Wingates’ cottage she tarries longer than elsewhere. There was a woman standing in the door, who, however, does not observe her—cannot—a hedge of holly between. Cautiously parting its spinous leaves and peering through, the young girl takes a survey, not of the woman, whom she well knows, but of a window—the only one in which there is a light. And less the window than the walls inside. On her way to the Ferry she had stopped to do the same; then seeing shadows—two of them—one a woman’s, the other of a man. The woman is there in the door—Mrs Wingate herself; the man, her son, must be elsewhere.
“Under the elm, by this,” says Mary Morgan, in soliloquy. “I’ll find him there,”—she adds, silently gliding past the gate.
“Under the elm,” mutters the man who follows, adding, “I’ll kill her there—ay, both!”