Though she tramped manfully along, Nan found her progress far from swift, for the surface of the ground was sticky and sodden after the rain. Her boots made soft little sucking sounds at every step. Nor was she quite sure of her road back to Mallow by way of the woods. She had been instructed that somewhere there ran a tiny river which she must cross by means of a footbridge, and then ascend the hill on the opposite side. "And after that," Barry had told her, "you can't lose yourself if you try."
But prior to that it seemed a very probable contingency, and she was beginning to weary of plodding over the boggy land, alternately slapped by outstanding branches or--when a little puff of wind raced overhead--drenched by a shower of garnered raindrops from some tree which seemed to shake itself in the breeze just as a dog may shake himself after a plunge in the sea, and with apparently the same intention of wetting you as much as possible in the process.
At last from somewhere below came the sound of running water, and Nan bent her steps hopefully in its direction. A few minutes' further walking brought her to the head of a deep-bosomed coombe, and the mere sight of it was almost reward enough for the difficulties of the journey. A verdant cleft, it slanted down between the hills, the trees on either side giving slow, reluctant place to big boulders, moss-bestrewn and grey, while athwart the tall brown trunks which crowned it, golden spears, sped by the westering sun, tremulously pierced the summer dusts.
Nan made her way down the coombe's steep side with feet that slipped and slid on the wet, shelving banks of mossy grass. But at length she reached the level of the water and here her progress became more sure. Further on, she knew, must be the footbridge which Barry had described--probably beyond the sharp curve which lay just ahead of her. She rounded the bend, then stopped abruptly, startled at seeing the figure of a man standing by the bank of the river. He had his back towards her and seemed engrossed in his thoughts. Almost instantly, however, as though subconsciously aware of her approach, he turned.
Nan stood quite still as he came towards her, limping a little. She felt that if she moved she must surely stumble and fall. The beating of her heart thundered in her ears and for a moment the river, and the steep sides of the coombe, and the figure of Peter Mallory himself all seemed to grow dim and vague as though seen through a thick mist.