Sallie thought she knew his real reason for being there, and it touched her sore heart to think that he was so eager to be at her side, sick or well, while the strange portent of which Mairi had told her was still impending.
"Do you really believe in the White Lady, Mr. Herries?" she asked with a little laugh that was half a sigh, as she put her hands into his and so set him down on a chair.
"I couldn't exactly say either yes or no," the old man answered with native caution. "But, at any rate, I've never seen—any such nonsense myself."
"I don't," declared Sallie, with simple conviction, and, turning as some one else entered the room, "He will come," said she to herself.
CHAPTER XXV
THE WHITE LADY
As Carthew, at the brink of the smooth plateau before the hut on the cliffs looked round instinctively, he caught sight of a tall white shadow that seemed to be moving toward him through the gloom among the tree-trunks. The evening was drawing in. He had thought he was quite alone there. He went round outside the hut to see what that stealthy shape might be.
He heard a sudden rustling not far away, and saw Captain Dove spring up from behind a bush to gaze about apprehensively. It flashed across his mind that Captain Dove must have been dogging him. He stayed where he was, watching the old man's precipitate flight followed by the figure in cloak and hood, which had darted a horrified, disbelieving glance of recognition at himself as it passed but was evidently too intent on its pursuit to pause.
Carthew had recognised it too, although it passed his understanding altogether to conceive how his own old enemy could have come to Loquhariot. He was, indeed, so taken aback at sight of the Emir El Farish there, and in such a state, that it was some minutes later before he had recovered his wits sufficiently to follow the trail of the strange chase he had witnessed.