The Captain rose to go. "I thought you would like to hear of her welfare, Squire, or I should not have intruded on you before tomorrow. And also that I had carried your present to her in safety. London seems full of mysterious robberies just now."
"It's always that; always that. I won't ask you to stay now," added the Squire; "you must drop in and see us another time. There's not much company comes to the Dyke nowadays. But at odd times a friend is welcome, eh? I've been thinking lately that perhaps my pretty one would be more lively if she saw more company: she finds it a bit drear, I fancy, since--since that matter in the winter. You, now, are young, but not too young; you have travelled, and seen the world, and you can talk. So you may call--once in a way, you know, eh--why not?"
As soon as Captain Lennox had gone Aaron came in. One by one, he slowly and with much deliberation extinguished the candles in the sconces over the chimney-piece, but not those on the table. He then proceeded to close and bar the shutters of the three high, narrow windows. It was a whim of Mr. Denison to have the windows of whatever room he might be sitting in left uncurtained and unshuttered till the last moment before retiring for the night. "I hate to sit in a room with its eyes shut," he used to say: and he never would do so if he could help it.
The clatter made by Aaron roused Mr. Denison from the reverie into which he had fallen. He lifted his head and watched Aaron bar the shutters of the last window. "As I drove home this afternoon, master," said Aaron, "I saw two strangers loitering about the park gates. They crossed the stile into the Far Meadow when they saw me, and then they slipped away behind the hedges."
"Ay, ay--spies--spies!" said the Squire. "They are at their old tricks again!--I've felt it for weeks. But we'll cheat them yet, Aaron--yes, we'll cheat them yet. Why, only an hour ago, when it was growing dark, just before you brought in the candles, as I sat looking out of the middle window, all at once I saw a man's face above the garden wall, staring straight into the room. I stared back at it, you may be sure. But at the end of two minutes or so, I could bear the thing no longer, so I up with my stick and shook it at the face, and next moment it was gone."
"I should like to shoot them--and them that send them!" exclaimed Aaron, viciously.
"They'll prowl about more than ever till the next eleven or twelve months have come and gone," said the Squire. "If they could see my coffin carried across the park to the old church, what a merry show that would be for them!--there'd be no more spying here then. That's ten o'clock striking. Put out the other candles and let us go."
Captain Lennox left the hall, carrying his cane and his little bag, and set off homewards. It was a balmy June evening, and the walk through the park would be a pleasant one. As soon as the door was shut behind him he proceeded to light a cigar, and, after crossing the lawn and the old bridge over the moat, he turned to the left and struck into a narrow footpath through the park, which would prove a shorter cut to the high road than the winding carriage-drive. Darkness and silence were around him: the stars gave but little light. He seemed to follow the pathway by instinct rather than by sight. It was a thinner line of grass that wound like a ribbon through the thicker grass of the park. His own footsteps were all but inaudible to him as he walked.
The pathway took a sudden turn round two gnarled thorn-trees, when all at once, and without a moment's warning, Captain Lennox found himself face to face with a dark-hooded figure--hooded and cloaked from head to foot--which might have sprung out of the ground, so silently and suddenly did it appear to his sight. The Captain, bold man though he was, felt startled, and an involuntary cry escaped his lips. The figure was startled too--it appeared to have been gazing intently at the windows of the house through the branches of the trees--and would have turned to run away. But Captain Lennox took a quiet step forward, and laid his hand upon its shoulder.
"Who are you?--and what are you doing here?" he sternly demanded.