‘Don’t you think,’ said Eve, in a faltering voice, ‘it may have been Joseph Woodman parting with Jane?’ Eve’s cheeks coloured as she said this; she was false with her sister.
Barbara shook her head, and went into her own room. ‘He has gone,’ she thought, ‘because the house is watched, his whereabouts has been discovered. I am glad he is gone. It is best for himself, for Eve’—after a pause—’and for me.’
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
POOR MARTIN.
Eve was uneasy all next day—at intervals—she could do nothing continuously—because of her promise. The recollection that she had bound herself to meet Watt on the Raven Rock at sundown came on her repeatedly during the day, spoiling her happiness. She would not have scrupled to fail to keep her promise, but that the horrible boy would be sure to force himself upon her, and in revenge do some dreadful mischief. She was so much afraid of him, that she felt that to keep her appointment was the lesser evil.
As the sun declined her heart failed her, and just before the orb set in bronze and gold, she asked Jane, the housemaid, to accompany her through the fields to the Raven Rock.
Timid Eve dare not trust herself alone on the dangerous platform with that imp. He was capable of any devilry. He might scare her out of her wits.
Jane was a good-natured girl, and she readily obliged her young mistress. Jane Welsh’s mother, who was a widow, lived not far from Morwell, in a cottage on the banks of the Tamar, higher up, where a slip of level meadow ran out from the cliffs, and the river made a loop round it.