“Won’t it keep till to-morrow?” she said.
“I shall be away on farm business to-morrow, miss, for the whole day. Please to give me a few minutes this evening.” He advanced a step toward her; his voice faltered, and dropped timidly to a whisper. “I really have something to say to you, Miss Naomi. It would be a kindness on your part—a very, very great kindness—if you will let me say it before I rest to-night.”
I rose again to resign my place to him. Once more Naomi checked me.
“No,” she said. “Don’t stir.” She addressed John Jago very reluctantly: “If you are so much in earnest about it, Mr. John, I suppose it must be. I can’t guess what you can possibly have to say to me which cannot be said before a third person. However, it wouldn’t be civil, I suppose, to say ‘No’ in my place. You know it’s my business to wind up the hall-clock at ten every night. If you choose to come and help me, the chances are that we shall have the hall to ourselves. Will that do?”
“Not in the hall, miss, if you will excuse me.”
“Not in the hall!”
“And not in the house either, if I may make so bold.”
“What do you mean?” She turned impatiently, and appealed to me. “Do you understand him?”
John Jago signed to me imploringly to let him answer for himself.
“Bear with me, Miss Naomi,” he said. “I think I can make you understand me. There are eyes on the watch, and ears on the watch, in the house; and there are some footsteps—I won’t say whose—so soft, that no person can hear them.”