'Doan't ye let 'ur, sir,' said the woman excitedly to Robert. 'One's eneuf aa'm thinking.' And she pointed with a meaning gesture to the room behind her.
Robert looked at Catherine, who was moving towards the outer door.
'I'll go with her,' he said hastily, his face lighting up. 'There is nothing whatever to be afraid of, only don't leave your patient.'
Catherine trembled as she heard the words, but she made no sign, and the two men and the woman watched their departure with blank uneasy wonderment. A second later they were on the fell-side climbing a rough stony path, which in places was almost a watercourse, and which wound up the fell towards a tract of level swampy moss or heath, beyond which lay the descent to Shanmoor. Daylight was almost gone; the stormy yellow west was being fast swallowed up in cloud; below them as they climbed lay the dark group of houses, with a light twinkling here and there. All about them were black mountain forms; a desolate tempestuous wind drove a gusty rain into their faces; a little beck roared beside them, and in the distance from the black gulf of the valley the swollen river thundered.
Elsmere looked down on his companion with an indescribable exultation, a passionate sense of possession which could hardly restrain itself. He had come back that morning with a mind clearly made up. Catherine had been blind indeed when she supposed that any plan of his or hers would have been allowed to stand in the way of that last wrestle with her, of which he had planned all the methods, rehearsed all the arguments. But when he reached the vicarage he was greeted with the news of her absence. She was inaccessible it appeared for the day. No matter! The vicar and he settled in the fewest possible words that he should stay till Monday, Mrs. Thornburgh meanwhile looking on, saying what civility demanded, and surprisingly little else. Then in the evening Mrs. Thornburgh had asked of him with a manner of admirable indifference whether he felt inclined for an evening walk to High Ghyll to inquire after Mary Backhouse. The request fell in excellently with a lover's restlessness, and Robert assented at once. The vicar saw him go with puzzled brows and a quick look at his wife, whose head was bent close over her worsted work.
It never occurred to Elsmere—or if it did occur, he pooh-poohed the notion—that he should find Catherine still at her post far from home on this dark stormy evening. But in the glow of joy which her presence had brought him he was still capable of all sorts of delicate perceptions and reasonings. His quick imagination carried him through the scene from which she had just momentarily escaped. He had understood the exaltation of her look and tone. If love spoke at all, ringed with such surroundings, it must be with its most inward and spiritual voice, as those speak who feel 'the Eternities' about them.
But the darkness hid her from him so well that he had to feel out the situation for himself. He could not trace it in her face.
'We must go right up to the top of the pass,' she said to him as he held a gate open for her which led them into a piece of larch plantation on the mountain-side. 'The ghost is supposed to walk along this bit of road above the houses, till it reaches the heath on the top, and then it turns towards Bleacliff Tarn, which lies higher up to the right, under High Fell.'
'Do you imagine your report will have any effect?'