Turning back at last towards the house, whose tall chimney-stacks and gables glimmered between the chestnuts and the cedars of the park, Jeffray followed a path that led by a rough bridge over a brook into a short stretch of woodland on the side of the hill. It appeared to be a fragment of the old forest of the weald that had escaped through the centuries from the iron-founder’s furnaces. The oaks stood at a noble distance from one another, the short and mighty boles breaking into the giant grandeur of their knotted limbs. The sweeping canopies of foliage rolled and met from tree to tree. Beneath them bracken grew. Beyond, panels of blue sky and silvery landscape closed in this sylvan temple of old Time.
As Jeffray idled through the wood he heard a voice calling him suddenly by name. The cry startled him as though it had echoed the voices of his inmost thoughts. He started back, looked, and saw a woman’s figure moving towards him under the trees. She came on swiftly, a kind of tired endurance on her face, her eyes turned steadily towards him, like the eyes of one straining towards sanctuary. It was Bess.
Jeffray felt the hot blood streaming to his face. He went forward to meet her, the green-wood filling for him with a double mystery. Bess held out a hand towards him. He saw that she looked white and tired, her eyes shining in her pale face with the fever of some strong emotion. He marked her bruised lips, the strip of blood-stained linen round her wrist. The girl’s face told him that something grim had happened.
She came straight to him with no hesitating look, came to him as though he were the one man on earth whom she could trust. Her strength seemed to fail her when she was within reach of Jeffray’s hands. She tottered and caught her breath. In a moment the man’s arms were holding her. The impulse justified him, as did the tired head that drooped towards his shoulder.
“What has happened, Bess? Tell me everything.”
Jeffray’s eyes had lost all the shadows of indecision. The girl was leaning on him, trusting her womanhood within his arms.
“Bess.”
“Ah—!”
It was a great sigh of contentment that escaped her. Jeffray’s arms drew yet closer. He would not have loosed her at that moment had twenty Lots set their swords at his throat.
“Tell me, Bess, what has happened.”