“There is some desperate game afoot here,” thought Philip Crowdy to himself, as he stood in the dark road, looking at the eager face of the girl. “Why—in Heaven’s name, does he want to meet her in a wood, if he’s going to take her to London? I must follow this up, if possible, at any cost.” Aloud he said, “Of course—how stupid of me; I’d quite forgotten. And to-morrow Dandy Chater, Esq., and——”
“Patience Miller,” broke in the girl, quickly—“will be man and wife—and Patience will be the happiest girl in England!”
“Got her name, by George!” muttered the man to himself. “Poor girl—I hope to goodness the man is dealing fairly with her.” Turning to the girl again, he said carelessly—“Let me see, what time did I say we were to meet in the wood?”
“At half-past seven,” replied the girl. “You said we should have time to walk across the fields, from there to the station, to catch the last train, without any one seeing us—don’t you remember?”
“Yes—yes, I remember,” replied the man. “I shan’t be late; till then—good-bye!”
He had turned away, and had gone some few paces down the road towards the village, when the girl called piteously after him.
“Dandy—you’re not going like that? Won’t you—won’t you kiss me?”
The man retraced his steps slowly. As, after a moment’s hesitation, he put an arm carelessly round her shoulders, and bent his face towards hers, he looked fully and strongly into her eyes; but there was no change in her expression—no faintest start of suspicion or doubt.
“That was a trial!” he muttered, when he had started again towards the village, and had left her standing in the road looking after him. “The likeness must be greater even than I suspected. Now to find Mr. Dandy Chater—or rather—to keep out of his way, until I know what his movements are.”
Coming, in the darkness, into the little village—a place consisting of one long straggling street of cottages, running up a hill—he found the road flanked on either side by a small inn. On the one side—the right hand—was the Chater Arms; on the other—the Bamberton Head. Standing between them, and looking up the long straggling street, Mr. Philip Crowdy could discern, in the distance, perched on rising ground, the outlines of a great house, with lights showing faintly here and there in its windows.