Sophia drew in her head. "Quick!" she cried. "Do you stand up and watch him, Betty, while I put the case away. Tell me in a moment if he comes on or is likely to overtake us."
Lady Betty complied. "He is walking still," she said, her head out on one side. "Now the grooms--lazy beasts, they should have been here--are passing him, La, what a turn it gave me. He had an eye--I hope to goodness we shall never meet the wretch again."
"I hope we may never meet him after nightfall," Sophia answered with a shudder. And she clicked the drawer home, dropped the valance in front of the seat, and rose from her knees.
"I noticed one thing, the left hand corner of his cloak was patched," Lady Betty said, as she drew in her head. "And I should know his horse among a hundred: chestnut, with white forelegs and a scarred knee."
"He saw them, he must have seen them!" Sophia cried in great distress. "Oh, why did I take them out!"
"But if he meant mischief he would have stopped us then," Lady Betty replied. "The grooms were half a mile behind, and I'll be bound Watkyns was asleep."
"He dared not here, because of these houses," Sophia moaned, as they rolled by a small inn, the outpost of the little hamlet of New Chapel Green, between Lingfield and Turner's Heath. "He will wait until we are in some lonely spot, in a wood, or crossing a common, or----"
"Sho!" Lady Betty cried contemptuously--the jewels were not hers, and weighed less heavily on her mind. "We are only five miles from Grinstead, see, there is the milestone, and it is early in the afternoon. He'll not rob us here if he be Turpin himself."
"All the same," Sophia cried, "I wish the diamonds were safe at Lewes."
"Why, child, they are your own!" Lady Betty answered. "If you lose them, whose is the loss?"