As Mr. Carlyle went home to dinner that evening, he entered the grove, ostensibly to make a short call on Mrs. Hare. Barbara, on the tenterhooks of impatience, accompanied him outside when he departed, and walked down the path.
“What have you learnt?” she eagerly asked.
“Nothing satisfactory,” was the reply of Mr. Carlyle. “And the man has left again.”
“Left?” uttered Barbara.
Mr. Carlyle explained. He told her how they had come to his house the previous evening after Barbara’s departure, and his encounter with Tom Herbert that day; he mentioned, also, his interview with Bethel.
“Can he have gone on purpose, fearing consequences?” wondered Barbara.
“Scarcely; or why should he have come?”
“You did not suffer any word to escape you last night causing him to suspect for a moment that he was hounded?”
“Not any. You would make a bad lawyer, Barbara.”
“Who or what is he?”