But he went too far in his fears for utter despair. Reaction set in—hope began once more to lacerate him, and whipped him forward to make his last desperate appeal to the fates that had always hitherto been deaf and blind.
He hesitated a moment when he came to the house. The servants might know who he was and not allow him in, or he might be seen by some of the family. It struck him that he had better go and look for her in the park before risking himself on the doorstep. She had once told him that she often wandered among the pines.
He slipped round behind the lodge, and was skirting the lawn at the back of the house, when he saw one of the French windows open and a girl come out with her dog. His heart gave a suffocating leap, and something seemed to rise in his throat and stay there, making him gulp idiotically. He had never before felt any emotion at the sight of her—just pleasure, a calm, slow-moving comfort. But to-day his head swam, and he could hardly see her as she came running and skipping across the lawn in a manner wholly at variance with her long skirts and coiled-up hair.
She turned aside before she reached the bushes that hid him, and he just managed to call after her—
"Tony!—Tony!"
The dog barked, and the next minute had scented him, and came cantering over the grass. Tony stood still and listened. She looked uncertain, and he called again—
"Tony!"
She turned quickly, and slipped behind the bushes, running to him along the path. When she was a few yards off she stopped dead.
"Mr. Furlonger...."