He stopped and crouched back under the trees, and was very, very still.
Through the darkness a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen, the soft falling of a foot, the careful passage of a body between lines of leaves.
Some one was advancing cautiously toward that darkened and opened window.
That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek had not the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at her temerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after that experience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he therefore remained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, and waited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feeling of disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as this case had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltry manner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as, naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolve itself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interview with the General, and then making capital of the information thus obtained.
The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his own peculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did not succeed in passing between hedge and coppice without the betraying rustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circumstance the mischief which followed was formed.
The shrubbery where Ailsa was waiting lay but a rope's cast distant from the spot where Cleek now crouched; and as if the ill-luck which had balked him once before to-night was intent upon flooring him at all quarters, he had no sooner grasped the unwelcome fact--made manifest by the clearer sound of the approaching body as it came into closer range--that the steps were advancing in a direct line with that shrubbery than a thin, eager whisper pierced the stillness.
It was the voice of Miss Lorne, saying cautiously, yet distinctly:
"Goodness gracious! Why, Purviss! You don't mean to tell me it's you?"
Purviss! Not Lady Clavering, but Geoff Clavering's old valet, Purviss? Here was a facer to be sure. Well, well, you never can tell which way a cat will jump, and that's a fact.