"I did."
"I won't go." Julian looked at Fox with twinkling eyes. "Oh, Fox! I do love and pity Bess too greatly to bear to see her at thy side. So you came for me? You came out here on the terrace after me?"
"I have told you so. How long have you been here?"
"But this minute. I took one walk as far as the old pigeon-house and back, and then—saw you. Did you come up the other way? From the yard?"
"I did."
"Oh! I will not go with you. Return to Bess. Tell her I love her and wish her well, but I cannot see her; I cannot now, I love her too well. Get thee gone, Fox."
CHAPTER L. ANOTHER FLIGHT.
The day was drawing to its decline before Fox returned to Hall. He had been alarmed at having been seen by his sister in the dove-cote, and he tried by craft to extract from her whether she had observed what he had been doing in it. He hung about Kilworthy for several hours, uncertain what course to pursue. He could draw nothing from Julian to feed his alarm, and he persuaded, or tried to persuade, himself that she had no suspicions that he had been in the dove-cote; then he considered what he had best do with the money-bags concealed there. He could remove them only at night, and if he removed them, where should he hide them? No more effectual place of concealment could well be imagined than the pigeon-house with its many lockers, the depths of which could not be probed by the eye from below, and only searched by the hand from a ladder. He puzzled his brain to find some other place, but his ingenuity failed him. He was angry with Julian for having come on the terrace at the inopportune moment when he was in the pigeon-house, and he was angry with himself for having gone there in daylight.
He asked, was it probable that Julian, had she suspected anything, would not at once have assailed him with inquiries wherefore he had gone to that deserted structure, and what he was doing within it, on the ladder. It would be unlike her not immediately to take advantage of an occasion either against him, or of perplexity to him, and he almost satisfied himself that she had believed his account, and was void of suspicion that there was concealment behind it. Even if she did suspect and search the lockers of the pigeon-cote, he must know it. He would find she had been there, and he deemed it advisable not to disturb his arrangement, but leave the money hidden there till he was given fresh cause for uneasiness relative to its safety, at all events for a few days, till he could discover another and more secret place for stowing it away.