Whoever carried it was coming towards the house, and as it swung I saw that it was a lantern, and that it was knocking gently, not against the leg of a man, as I had anticipated, but against the skirts of a woman; so much I made out clearly. When the light was so close as to be almost under my window I craned forward, and looked, for it had stopped.
The next moment I saw what I wanted to see clearly. The lantern was raised, and opened; a face was set close to it that the light might be blown out. In the second before the light was puffed out I saw that face clearly—the face of Martha Leach!
Long after she had gone into the house I stood there puzzling about the matter, wondering what she could have had to say to George Rabbit. I remembered how she had come into the room when he was taking the money from the table; I remembered, too, her threat to me, at an earlier time, that she would find out how I came into the house and all about me. And I knew that, whether she had succeeded or not, she had paid that nocturnal visit to George Rabbit to find out from him what he knew.
I found myself wondering whether the man had stood firm, or whether he had been induced to tell the truth. I knew that in the latter case I had an enemy in the house more powerful than any I had encountered yet; so much justice at least I did her.
At breakfast the next morning the doctor was in a new mood. Something to my surprise, I found both him and Debora at the breakfast table when I entered; I may say that I had been to that loft over the stable, only to find, as I had hoped, that my bird was flown. Now I murmured a word of apology as I moved round to my place, and was laughingly answered by Bardolph Just.
"You should indeed apologise, my dear John, on such an occasion as this," he said. "And not to me, but to the lady. Don't you know what to-day is?"
I think I murmured stupidly that I thought it was Tuesday, but the doctor caught me up on the word, with another laugh.
"Yes, but what a Tuesday! It is Debora's birthday!"
"All my good wishes," I said, turning to her at once; and I was rewarded by a quick shy glance and a smile.
"Come, show John what I've given you; let him see it," exclaimed the doctor. "Or stay—let me put it on!"