en in the lane. He went
to the road, and the sound of his feet died away for a few moments. Then
she heard them returning--he was back in the lane--on the brick path,
and stood listening or, perhaps, reflecting. He muttered something
exclamatory, and she heard a match struck, and shortly afterwards he
moved across the garden patch towards the little spinney. He had thought
of it, as she had believed he would. He would not think of this place,
and in the end he might get tired or awakened to a sense of his lurid
folly, and realise that it would be safer for him to go back to Stornham
with some clever lie, trusting to his belief that there existed no girl
but would shrink from telling such a story in connection with a man who
would brazenly deny it with contemptuous dramatic detail. If he would
but decide on this, she would be safe--and it would be so like him that
she dared to hope. But, if he did not, she would lie close, even if she
must wait until morning, when some labourer's cart would surely pass,
and she would hear it jolting, and drag herself out, and call aloud
in such a way that no man could be deaf. There was more room under her
hedge than she had thought, and she found that she could sit up, by
clasping her knees and bending her head, while she listened to every
sound, even to the rustle of the grass in the wind sweeping across the
marsh.

She moved very gradually and slowly, and had just settled into utter
motionlessness when she realised that he was coming back through the
garden--the straggling currant and gooseberry bushes were being trampled
through.

"Betty, go home," Rosalie had pleaded. "Go home--go home." And she had
refused, because she could not desert her.

She held her breath and pressed her hand against her side, because her
heart beat, as it seemed to her, with an actual sound. He moved with
unsteady steps from one point to another, more than once he stumbled,
and his angry oath reached her; at last he was so near her hiding place
that his short hard breathing was a distinct sound. A moment later he
spoke, raising his voice, which fact brought to her a rush of relief,
through its signifying that he had not even guessed her nearness.

"My dear Betty," he said, "you have the pluck of the devil, but
circumstances are too much for you. You are not on the road, and I have
been through the spinney. Mere logic convinces me that you cannot be far
away. You may as well give the thing up. It will be