“She is here in the coppice.”
“Nonsense, lad! Ketira’s dead, you know.”
“But I have just seen her, and spoken to her.”
“Then what did those gipsy-tramps mean by telling Abel Carew that she had died?” cried the Squire explosively, as he marched across the few yards of greensward towards the coppice.
“Abel did not feel quite sure at the time that he and they were not talking of two persons. That must have been the case, sir.”
We were too late. Ketira was already half-way along the path that led to the common: no doubt on her road to pay a visit to Abel Carew. And I can only relate what passed there at second hand. Between ourselves, Ketira was no favourite of his.
He was at his early dinner of bread-and-butter and salad when she walked in and astonished him. Abel, getting over his surprise, invited her to partake of the meal; but she just waved her hand in refusal, as much as to say that she was superior to dinner and dinner-eating.
“Have you found Kettie?” was his next question.
“It is the first time a search of mine ever failed,” she replied, beginning to pace the little room in agitation, just as a tiger paces its confined cage. “I have given myself neither rest nor peace since I set out upon it; but it has not brought me tidings of my child.”
“It must have been a weary task for you, Ketira. I wish you would break bread with me.”