As they got down into Eglosilyan and turned the sharp corner over the bridge they did not notice the figure of a man who had been concealing himself in the darkness of a shed belonging to a slate-yard.  So soon as they passed he went some little way after them until, from the bridge, he could see them stop at the door of the inn.  Was it Mrs. Rosewarne who came out of the glare, and with something like a cry of delight caught her daughter in her arms?  He watched the figures go inside and the phaeton drive away up the hill; then, in the perfect silence of the night, he turned and slowly made toward Basset Cottage.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

AN ANGRY INTERVIEW.

Next morning George Rosewarne was seated on the old oak bench in front of the inn reading a newspaper.  Happening to look up, he saw Mr. Roscorla hurrying toward him over the bridge with no very pleasant expression on his face.  As he came nearer he saw that the man was strangely excited.  “I want to see your daughter alone,” he said.

“You needn’t speak as if I had tried to run away with her,” Rosewarne answered, with more good-nature than was his wont.  “Well, go in-doors:  ask for her mother.”

As Roscorla passed him there was a look in his eyes which rather startled George Rosewarne.

“Is it possible,” he asked himself, “that this elderly chap is really badly in love with our Wenna?”

But another thought struck him.  He suddenly jumped up, followed Roscorla into the passage, where the latter was standing, and said to him, “Don’t you be too harsh with Wenna:  she’s only a girl, and they are all alike.”  This hint, however discourteous in its terms, had some significance as coming from a man who was six inches taller than Mr. Roscorla.

Mr. Roscorla was shown into an empty room.  He marched up and down, looking at nothing.  He was simply in an ungovernable rage.  Wenna came and shut the door behind her, and for a second or so he stared at her as if expecting her to burst into passionate professions of remorse.  On the contrary, there was something more than calmness in her appearance:  there was the desperation of a hunted animal that is driven to turn upon its pursuer in the mere agony of helplessness.

“Well,” said he—­for indeed his passion almost deprived him of his power of speech—­“what have you to say?  Perhaps nothing.  It is nothing, perhaps, to a woman to be treacherous—­to tell smooth lies to your face and to go plotting against you behind your back.  You have nothing to say?  You have nothing to say?”

“I have nothing to say,” she said with some little sadness in her voice, “that would excuse me, either to you or to myself:  yes, I know that.  But—­but I did not intentionally deceive you.”

He turned away with an angry gesture.

“Indeed, indeed I did not,” she said piteously.  “I had mistaken my own feelings—­the temptation was too great.  Oh, Mr. Roscorla, you need not say harsh things of me, for indeed I think worse of myself than you can do.”