"Oh, yes, yes, is what you mean," the other retorted good-naturedly; and was half-way across the room before Sophia could protest. "I am going upstairs for something I've forgotten, Watkyns," Lady Betty cried, as she passed the servant.
Sophia, listening and balancing her spoon in her hands, awaited her return; and the moments passed, and passed, and still Lady Betty did not come back. Sophia grew nervous and more nervous; rose at last to follow her, and sat down again, ashamed of the impulse. At length, when the waiter had gone out to hasten the second course, and Watkyns' back was turned, she could bear it no longer. She jumped up and slipped out of the room, passed two gaping servants at the foot of the stairs, and in a moment had darted up. Without waiting for a light, she groped her way along the narrow passage that led to the room she shared with Lady Betty. A window on the left looked into the inn-yard and admitted a glimmer of reflected light; but it was not this, it was something she heard as she passed it, that brought her to a sudden stand beside the casement. From the room she was seeking came the sound of a low voice and a stifled laugh. An instant Sophia fancied that Lady Betty was lingering there talking to her woman; and she felt a spark of annoyance. Then--what she thought she could never remember. For her eyes, looking mechanically through the panes beside her, saw, a little short of the fatal chaise-house, a patch of bright light, proceeding doubtless from the unshuttered window of the bedroom, and erect in the full of it the cloaked figure of the strange rider--of the man who had dogged them!
He was looking upwards at the illumined window, his hat raised a little from his head, the arm that held it interposed between Sophia's eyes and his face. Still she knew him. She had not a doubt of his identity. The candle rays fell brightly on the thick black wig, on the patched corner of the cloak, raised by the pose of his arm; and in a whirl of confused thoughts and fears, Sophia felt her knees shake under her.
A fresh whisper in the room was the signal for a low giggle. The man bowed and moved a step nearer, still bowing; which brought his knees against the sloping shaft of a cart that was set conveniently beneath the window. Sophia--a shiver running down her back as she saw how easily he could ascend--began to understand. The villain was tampering with Lady Betty's maid! Probably he was already in league with the woman; certainly, to judge by the sounds that reached the listener's ear--for again she caught a suppressed titter--he was on terms with her.
Sophia felt all a woman's rage against a woman, and wasted no further time on thought. She had courage and to spare, her fears for the jewels notwithstanding. In a twinkling she was at the door, had flung it open, and, burning with indignation, had bounced into the middle of the room, prepared to annihilate the offender. Yet not prepared for what she saw. In the room was only Lady Betty; who, as she entered, sprang from the window and stood confronting her with crimson cheeks.
"Betty!" Sophia gasped. "Betty?" And stood as if turned to stone; her face growing harder and harder, and harder. At last--"Lady Betty, what does this mean?" she asked in icy accents.
The girl giggled and shook her hair over her flushed face and wilful eyes; but did not answer.
"What does it mean?" Sophia repeated. "I insist on an answer."
Lady Betty pouted and half turned her back. "Oh, la!" she cried, at last, pettishly shrugging her shoulders, "Don't talk like that! You frighten me out of my wits! Instead of talking, we'd better close the window, unless you want him to be as wise as we are."
"Him!" Sophia cried, out of patience with the girl's audacity. "Him? Am I to understand, then, that you have been talking through the window? You a young lady in my company, to a man whom you never saw until to-day? A strange man met on the road, and of whose designs you have been warned? I cannot, I cannot believe it! I cannot believe my eyes, Lady Betty!" she continued warmly. "You, at this window, at this hour, talking to a common stranger? A stranger of whose designs I have warned you? Why, if your woman, miss, if your woman were to be guilty of such conduct, I could hardly believe it! I could hardly believe that I saw aright!"