The moment that he was out of sight, Susannah came from behind the tree, her eyes shining.
“Come with me—now—this minute!” she cried. “There’s no time to lose! Another half hour and it’ll be too late. He’s sure to come to the house as soon as his business is done. I’d no notion he was to be at the fair.”
“You might have guessed it,” said Saunders roughly.
“He told me, no more nor the night he came with Catherine, that none o’ them were to be down from the farm.”
They set out together without another word. The sight of the shepherd had done more to make up Charles’s mind than all Susannah’s arguments and persuasions. She had escaped so narrowly from being seen by Heber in Charles’s company that she now piloted her companion to the cottage through the same quiet ways she had traversed in the morning with her uncle.
She entered the house and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Saunders in the passage. He stood waiting there like a keeper who has just put his ferret down a rabbit-hole in a warren. In concert with Susannah’s tones he could hear the gruff quaver of the old man, and he listened impatiently for Catherine’s voice. His agitation was great, for might not the next footfall in the by-street outside be Heber’s tread? At last, getting no summons, he pushed in.
Susannah was facing him, silent. Old Moorhouse, sitting at the hearth, took his pipe out of his mouth.
“Her be gone,” said he; “her be’ant here. When I come from the fair her were gone.”
The spark of excitement in his face had developed, for a moment, some latent likeness to his son. It struck Charles Saunders like a blow, and he turned round, slamming the door, and went out into the street.