To observe was to rouse in the girl’s mind a desire to find an explanation for the very simple phenomenon that puzzled her.
She was thus engaged, raising her face, then a hand, so as to be now sunlit, then to intercept the light, and see what the effect was on the water, when she was startled to observe in the liquid mirror the reflection of a second face looking down from above. The sun was on it, in the eyes, and they glittered up at her from below.
With an exclamation of alarm, she turned and saw a man standing above her.
CHAPTER XXI
AN OFFER
Kate rose to a sitting posture, and drew her feet under her, rested one hand on the rock, and with the other screened her eyes from the glare of the sun, to observe the intruder on her solitude.
Then she recognised Roger Redmore. He was without his coat, an axe over one shoulder. In his right hand he held a tuft of cotton grass dug up by the roots.
“I knowed as you wor here,” said he, “but I dursn’t speak before others, lest they should find me out who I wor.”
“Are you living here, Roger?”
“I be working here at the felling Brimpts oaks. You see, your fayther, he’s so little at Coombe that he don’t know me, and I thought I might get money by working here. And I want you to do a little job for me.”
“What is it, Roger?”