"If you go down the hill by the foot-path, you will come out on the main road," she said, pointing with her dear little fat finger.
"Thank you. Mr. Cranmer will meet me somewhere on the road—he said he would. I—I shall see you again as soon as—directly—as I said to your sister," stammered the young man, in an unfinished, fragmentary way.
He took her hand, with the graceful gravity which characterized all his greetings of women.
"Thank you," he said again, and, lifting his cap, vaulted over the stile, and walked rapidly down the foot-path.
Miss Fanny gazed after him through a mist of tears, which she presently wiped away from her fresh cheeks, and trotted back to the terrace with an expression not devoid of hope.
Her pigeons flew round her; they knew that it was past feeding-time. The gleaming wings flashed and circled in the light, and presently the gravel was covered with the pretty, strutting things, nodding their sheeny necks, and chuckling softly to each other.
"Jack-ee! Jack-ee!" screamed the chough, discordantly, rushing in among their ranks, and routing them.
"Jackie! Come here, you naughty bird!" cried Miss Fanny, interposing for the protection of her pets. "There! there! Go along, do! Go along, do!... I really don't know how it is—I do feel that I place such confidence in that young man! Quite a stranger, too! Very odd! But I feel as though a special Providence had sent that yacht our way to-day. It seems as though it had been sent purposely—it really does. Somehow, to-night, I feel as if help were near. No power can restore poor dear Godfrey, that's true; but we may save Elsa, I do hope and trust."
Claud was leaning over the low stone wall of the highroad, when a touch on the shoulder roused him, and, looking up, he met Percivale's collected gaze.
"Now, quick!" was all Percivale said; and, in a moment, both young men were hurrying along the Quarry Road as fast as their legs would carry them.