“I almost blessed Dan, sir, for wounding you in the woods.”
“Bess!”
“I have kept the cup out of which you drank, and put orpine in it, and it grows lustily. Listen, did you hear Dan’s gun? He’s down by the fish-ponds after wild duck.”
She had started back from Jeffray with all the soft, glamourish light gone from her face, her eyes growing hard and fierce under her black brows. With a significant gesture she turned and climbed into one of the ruined windows, and, parting the ivy that hung in masses about the jambs, looked out over the grass-land towards the abbey pools. A man was standing under a willow with his back towards the ruins. He was busy recharging his gun, and watching his spaniel that was swimming out to recover the bird that had fallen into the water. Bess watched him a moment with her eyes sullen and full of hatred. Surely some devil must have persuaded the unconscious Dan to trudge down to the abbey ponds that evening.
Springing down again, she ran back to Jeffray, her red petticoat swinging about her slim, strong ankles.
“It is Dan,” she said, in a whisper, looking hard at Richard.
“Confound the fellow!”
Bess’s eyes gleamed sympathetically.
“You must go, Mr. Jeffray.”
“Go?”