'Has there been any change?' asked Jane as she came among the spectators.
'Nothing so far, but something will happen before very long. Hush! Did you hear that?'
No—there was no sound, either from sea or land.
'You are surely not going back to your house?' said one of those looking on, as Jane passed him.
'I must go. I have all my little possessions there.'
'However got,' threw in one hard by.
Jane Marley accelerated her pace to be away from the crowd and to reach her home.
None seemed to know whence the menace came, and where danger would be found. Some individuals more timid than others lurked behind hedges, putting a bank and quickset between themselves and danger. Others held to gates and rails. Others again looked out for a clear space in rear, over which to beat a precipitate retreat, if necessary.
After Jane had pushed through the line of onlookers, she descended to the Undercliff, reached her door, looked about her, listened, and entered.
When she had gone forth with the preventive man, half an hour previously, she had not observed a face watching her from behind a rock. When she traversed the bushes, she had not seen how a man stole forth from his place of concealment. She had not suspected, whilst she stood on the cliff observing the tumescent waters, that this man had slipped in at her door left unlocked, and had secreted himself within the house.