He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and strode along at a good pace, which, however, grew slower as he neared the clearing in which stood Gideon Rolfe's cottage, and just before he emerged from the wood into it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart was beating fast.
It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset him.
"This won't do," he said; "I must keep cool. A child would get the better of me while I am like this; and I mustn't forget I've got to face that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!"
And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing.
Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up.
With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. He knocked again and again--still no answer.
Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky trail rising through the trees. He listened--there was no sound. His heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots.
With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked through a hole in the shutter into the room.
It was bare of furniture--empty, desolate.
He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone.
It was incredible. Three days--only three days. What had happened? Was--was anyone dead? And at this thought his face grew as pale as the tan would allow it.
No; that was absurd. People--she--could not have died and been buried in three days! Then, where was she? Was it possible that the old man had actually left the wood--thrown up his livelihood--because of his (Jack's) visit to the cottage?
A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been over the squire's will, he paced up and down. He sat down on the seat outside the window--the seat where he had drunk his cider and eaten his cake--the seat where Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently--and he lit his pipe and smoked in utter bewilderment.
Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to describe his feelings.
He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a sort of set-off against the terrible blow which the squire's will had dealt him, and now she was gone!