“Drive on,” he said; and the gig turned back on the road it had come.
“Drive on, mess-mate,” said the Captain, climbing into the caravan.
Philip Chater, lying behind the hedge, watched the two vehicles until they were out of sight in the darkness; then, when there seemed nothing more to be feared, he crept out, and struck off towards Bamberton.
“What was the message?” he muttered to himself. “‘I love him—and believe in his innocence.’ Dear girl! I’ll see you to-night—if I die for it!”
CHAPTER XIX
HAUNTED
That one thought dominated all else in the mind of Philip Chater. She believed him innocent—and she loved him. True, the message was not for him, in reality; it was for the man who lay in an unknown grave. But, having taken that dead man’s place, he claimed this message also, as belonging to him.
“I have taken the burden of his sins upon me—I am in peril of my life on account of them,” he thought. “Surely I have the right to claim this sweeter portion of what was his, as some leaven in the weight of my punishment. Yes—I’ll see her first; after that, if they capture me, I’ll go back with a light heart.”
Caution was necessary in approaching the village; for, by the time he reached it, daylight had fully come, and the people were astir. Keeping well on the outskirts of it, and yet in a place from which he could easily and rapidly reach the spot he had marked out in his mind as his destination, he came to a little copse, on the edge of some fields, and settled himself, as comfortably as possible, in a deep dry ditch, overhung with brambles and bushes, which completely hid him from the sight of any one passing near. Knowing that he must wait until nightfall, before daring to venture out, he resolved to remain in this place, with all the patience he could muster.
He had borrowed from Captain Quist a little tobacco and a pipe; and, after cautiously looking about him, he filled and lit this, and began to feel more resigned to his position. From where he lay, he could see, through the tangled growth above him, the towers and chimneys of Chater Hall; raising his head a little he could see a path, which wound across some slightly rising ground, and appeared to lead from the Hall down to the road near which he lay—entry to the road from it being obtained through a wooden gate in the high paling, which surrounded the grounds at the point where they joined the road. The Hall being high above him, he could see this path in its windings and twistings very clearly; and, as it was a short cut to the village, it appeared to be used pretty often.
It amused and interested the fugitive, lying hidden there, to watch this path, and those who came down it; he found himself wondering idly whether he should ever tread that path again or set foot in Chater Hall, and under what circumstances.