Again they heard Dan calling to the dog. He was passing by the pool, and they could catch his heavy foot-falls on the grass. The footsteps ceased of a sudden, and they could hear the panting of the dog quite near. Jeffray felt the pressure of Bess’s fingers. They looked into each other’s eyes—one long look that seemed to challenge fate.
The spaniel whimpered wistfully. They heard her move through the long grass, splash through the shallows of the pool, the sound of her breathing growing less and less. They saw Dan go striding past the doorway, his gun over his shoulder, a hare dangling by the legs from his left hand. In a flash he was gone, the black spaniel padding at his heels and looking back restlessly from time to time.
Bess gave a great sigh and leaned heavily against Jeffray. Somehow the man’s arm had crept round her, and he felt the full ebb and flow of her breath. The warmth of her body seemed to steal into him with a sense of nearness and of contact. Her head was half resting on his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek.
She turned her head and looked up at him, half wearily, yet with a tired tenderness. Her eyes seemed doubly bright in the cool darkness of the place.
The abominable and discourteous indifference displayed by the master of Rodenham would have been sufficient to incense a less selfish person than Miss Jilian Hardacre. Three days had passed since Jeffray had returned from The Wells, and yet he had not so much as presented himself at the house of his betrothed. No gentleman’s behavior could have been more deserving of censure, and Miss Hardacre had shed angry tears over the indecent remissness of her lover. As for Brother Lot, the gathering cloud of thunder on his face would have honored the solemn temper of an Epic. Sir Peter and his son took counsel together in the dilemma, and the elder restrained his hot-headed Rupert of a son from galloping straightway to the charge. Sir Peter declared against an immediate recourse to methods of moral torture lest Mr. Richard should complain of provocation. A letter should be despatched from the fair Jilian, requiring Jeffray to pay his respects to her or challenge the peril of her severe displeasure.
When Jeffray returned from the yew valley that night, he found that a servant had left a letter for him from Hardacre. From the warm fragrance of the summer twilight he came into the old library where Gladden had lit the candles in the silver candlesticks. Jeffray threw open the window and stood for a moment looking out into the night. A myriad stars were shining in the dusky vault of blue; dew was in the air; a faint, fresh perfume ascended out of the earth. In the thickets nightingales were singing, and a streak of gold still gleamed in the west.