Not till he had covered several miles out of Halifax did Marryott catch his next glimpse of Anne and her three attendants. They were then at a good distance behind; but gradually during the afternoon they decreased the distance,—a natural enough thing to do, for the proximity of Barnet's martial-looking troop was a protection. That evening both parties lodged at Barnesley. The state of the roads, and of Barnet's leg, had forbidden faster progress. It was not quite dark when Hal was led into the chamber where he was to sup and sleep. He sat down on a joint-stool by the window.
Ten minutes passed. Awaiting his supper, he was still looking listlessly out of the window at the darkening evening. Was not that Anthony Underhill yonder, leading a riderless horse to and fro upon the green that was visible through a gap in the row of houses opposite the inn? It was odd that he should haply be repeating in Hal's view at supper-time the action that Francis had performed in Hal's sight at dinner-time. The arrival of pickled herrings and ale drew Marryott's eyes from the window, and his mind from the spectacle.
The next morning, on arising to depart, Marryott by chance beheld, this time with a touch of wondering amusement, another repetition of the same performance, with the single difference that now the leader of the horse was Kit Bottle.
When some hours of the forenoon journey had been spent, Marryott, looking back, saw with a little surprise that Anne's party was close behind his own. Barnet rode at his side, leading his horse; half of the escort rode two and two in front, the other half in the rear. These rear horsemen intervened between Hal and Anne; but as he ascended the side of a hollow he could look over the heads behind him to her as she descended the farther side.
Her glance met his; and in it was a kind of message, which she seemed to have long awaited the moment for delivering. With all possible eloquence of eyes and face, she appeared to express apology, a request for pardon, a wish to serve him! Ere he could assure himself by keener inspection whether he had read aright the look that had thrilled him out of his lethargy, he had reached the crest of the ascent, and the men behind him had closed his view.
Poignantly alive now in mind and heart, he tormented himself for several miles with conjectures whether her expression had been intentional on her part or correctly translated on his. This he could best ascertain by sending her, at the first opportunity, a look in reply.
When he was next in line of sight with her, he glanced back his answer. It consisted merely of a faint smile, soft and kindly, by which he hoped to say that he understood, forgave, and loved.
To his unutterable joy, she instantly responded with a smile that was the echo of his own.
This conversation, carried on so silently and at such distance, but so decisive and full of import, was of course so conducted that Marryott's captors suspected nothing of it. A certain curiosity as to whether his supposed betrayers were following him toward London was natural on the part of one in his situation, and it accounted, in Barnet's mind, for his looking back.
At Clown, dining in the very ale-house chamber whence Mistress Hazlehurst had looked at his detention by the constable's men, Marryott saw, some way down the lane from which the coach had been drawn, a riderless horse led back and forth by Francis. It flashed upon him at last that the continual recurrence of this scene must be more than mere coincidence.