“Bess,” said the man, at last.
She watched him—and waited.
“Let us leave this riddle to rot in Pevensel. What do I care whether you are of the Grimshaw blood or no!”
She held out her hands to him with a great sigh.
“Take me away from it all,” she said. “I want you—and nothing more.”
A young moon was showing its silver crescent above the trees when Bess and Jeffray came out upon the heath. The two troopers and the guide were waiting for them, their figures showing dimly against the sky-line. Jeffray hailed the men, assured them that he had no further need of an escort, and, giving them a couple of guineas apiece, advised them to ride back and rejoin their troop. The fellows pocketed the money, and wished Jeffray a very good-evening. There might be spoil to be had at the hamlet in Pevensel, rooms to be rifled, hidden money to be unearthed. They turned back with the guide into the woods, leaving Bess and her man to ride on to Rodenham alone.
XLIV
Thus Bess and Jeffray rode into Rodenham together, while the scent of the wet grass floated on the warm air, and the great cedars smelled of Lebanon. The storm shower had beaten down the grass in places, so that in the dim light it seemed like the swirling eddies of a restless sea. A night-jar whirred in the beechwoods above the road. Rabbits scurried hither and thither. Jeffray could faintly see the heads of his deer rising above the bracken on the edge of the wood.
Soon the old house, black-chimneyed, a pile of shadows, with here and there a window gleaming, rose up before them out of the east. Bess drew her breath in deeply, seeing that his eyes were fixed upon the place. She was wondering whether he was sad at leaving such a home to go alone with her into strange lands.
“Of what are you thinking?” he asked her, suddenly.