"I have no doubt that I shall be able to find out if you wish to know," he answers gravely; "for I think he must be as much an acquaintance of yours as of mine, since it was only at the Moat that I ever met him."
He had thought that Mrs. Le Marchant was already as colourless as a woman could be; but as he speaks, he sees her face take on a new degree of pallor. She struggles unsteadily to her feet.
"It is—it is getting late!" she says indistinctly; "we—ought—to be—going home!"
Even as she speaks she makes an uncertain step forward, but it is so uncertain that he catches her by the arm.
"You are not fit to move yet," he says with kind imperativeness; "rest five minutes longer; it is not late, really—the sun is quite high still."
Convinced, either by the young man's eloquence, or, as is more likely, by the shaking of her own limbs, Mrs. Le Marchant sits down again. Elizabeth has risen to her feet, and now stands beside her mother. She has said nothing, but he can see her trembling from head to heel. He hears her voice now addressing him, but in so subdued a key that her words are almost lost in the low blowing of the faint south wind that is fondling the blades of the unshorn grass.
"Did you say that he was gone? Are you sure of it?"
"Yes, yes, quite sure! I saw him go."
"Did you—did you happen to hear where he was staying?"
"No, but"—with the greatest eagerness—"I can easily find out; nothing can be simpler."