“Squire Griffin?”
“Ay, sure, sir. He’s in a taking, and mun see him, whether or no! Mortal put about he were!”
Clement thought rapidly, the vague alarm which he had felt taking solid shape. What if the Squire had repented of his generosity? What if the help, heaven-sent, beyond hope and beyond expectation, which had removed their fears, were after all to fail them? Clement’s heart sank. “Who sent you?” he asked. “The young lady?”
“Ay, sure. And she were in a taking, too. Crazy she were.”
Clement leapt to a decision. He laid his hand on the rail of the gig. “Look here,” he said. “You’d better take me out instead, and, at any rate, I can explain.”
“But it were Mr. Arthur——”
“I know, but he’s half-way to London by now. And he won’t be back till Thursday.”
He climbed up, and the lad accepted his decision and turned the horse. They trotted down the hill between the dimly lighted shops, past observers who recognized the Garth gig, by groups of men who loitered and shivered before the tavern doors. They swung sharply into Maerdol, where the peaks of the gables on either hand rose against a pale sky, and a moment later they were crossing the bridge, and felt the cold waft of the river breeze on their faces. Two minutes saw them trotting steadily across the open country, the lights of the town behind them.
Clement sat silent, lost in thought, wondering if he were doing right, and fearing much that the Squire had repented of his generosity and was minded to recall it. If that were so, the awakening from the hopes which he had raised, and the dream of security in which they had lost themselves, would be a cruel shock. Clement shrank from thinking what its effect would be on his father, whose relief had betrayed the full measure of his fears. And his own case was hardly better, for it was not only his fortune that was at stake and that he had thought saved. He had given rein, also, to his hopes. He had let them carry him far into a roseate country where the sun shone and Josina smiled, and all the difficulties that had divided them melted into air. There might be need of time and patience; but with time and patience he had fancied that he might win his way.
It was cruel, indeed, then if the old man at Garth had changed his mind, if he had played with them, only to deceive them, only to disappoint them! And Clement could not but fear that it was so. The closing day, the wintry air, the prospect before him, as they swung across the darkening land, seemed to confirm his fears and oppress him with misgivings. A long cloud, fish-shaped, hung lowering across the western sky; below it, along the horizon, a narrow strip of angry yellow, unnaturally bright, threw the black, jagged outline of the hills into violent contrast, and shed a pale light on the intervening plain. Ay, he feared the worst. He could think of nothing else that could be the cause of this sudden, this agitated summons. The Squire must have repented. He had changed his mind, and——