They only spoke once; and then it was Claud who broke the silence.
"Fowler thinks it hopeless—that you are altogether on a wrong track," he said.
"We shall see," was the response, in a tense voice which told of highly-strung nerves.
Claud thought of his last journey along that road, staggering blindly in darkness and rain, with the screaming wind and thundering sea in his ears. Last night! Could it be only last night? A thousand years seemed to have elapsed since then. Life, just now, seemed made up of crisis; and he railed at himself for being hatefully heartless, because he could not help a certain feeling of excitement, which was almost like pleasure, in anticipating the dénouement of the affair.
A growing admiration for the strange owner of the Swan was his dominant sensation. There was a light of purpose in Percivale's eye, an air of conviction about his whole manner, which could not fail to influence his companion.
The feelings of both young men were at a high pitch as they paused before the door of Mrs. Parker's somewhat remote cottage, and knocked. The woman opened the door and looked at her visitors in astonishment. One glance at her was enough to gauge her character in an instant. She was what country people call a "poor thing." Her expression was that of meek folly, and she wore a perpetual air of apology. Her red-rimmed, indefinite eyes suggested a perennial flow of tears, ready at the shortest notice, and her weak fingers fumbled at her untidy throat in fruitless efforts to hold together a dilapidated brown silk handkerchief which had become unfastened.
"Good evening, gentlemen," she said, "what can I do for you?"
Her air was mildly surprised.
"We called in," said Claud, who was not unknown to her, "to ask if you've heard the awful news about the discovery on the cliffs this morning?"
"Lord, no! She had heard never a word of it—nobody never took no trouble to look in and tell her any bit o' news as might be going; she might as well be dead and buried, for all the comfort she ever got out of her life," grumbled she, plaintively.