It would be quite too much to suppose that the gentleman in question was particularly open to impressions—­and it is certain that his thoughts at that minute were well wrapped up in their own affairs; and yet as he went round the turn, passing out of the line of shadow into absolute moonshine again, there came upon him a strange sense of some presence there besides his own.  But what the evidence was, whether it had smote upon his eye or upon his ear, of that Mr. Rollo was profoundly ignorant.  Yet it is safe to say that he came out of his musings and looked about him.  Only a midsummer night’s dream still:  the open road for a mile ahead in full view, the dark line of trees on each side as motionless as if asleep.  But the utter hush was perhaps more suggestive than the stir of a breezy night:  it seemed as if everything was listening and held its breath to hear.

The gentleman in question, however, was not one to let slip such a suggestion to his nerves—­or his senses.  His nerves were of the coolest and steadiest kind; he could depend on them for getting up no shams to puzzle him; and his senses had had capital training.  Eye and ear were keen almost as those of some of the wild creatures whose dependence they are; and Rollo had the craft and skill of a practised hunter.  So instead of dismissing the fancy that had struck him, as most men would, he fell noiselessly into the shadow again, with eyes and ears alive on the instant to take evidence that might be relied on.  But nothing stirred.  Nothing shewed.  Except as before, the yellow moonlight and the dark trees.  Rollo was a hunter, and patient.  He stood still.  The shadowy edges of the stream of light changed slowly, slightly, and still the evidence he looked for did not come.  Nothing seemed to change but those dark fringes; only now some wave of the branches as the wind began to rise, let in the moonlight for a moment upon a small white speck across the road.  He thought so:  something whiter than a wet stone or a bleached stick,—­or it might be fancy.  Noiselessly and almost invisibly, for Dane could move like an Indian, and with such quickness, he was over the road and at the spot.  There was no mistaking the token—­it was a little glove of Wych Hazel’s.  Evidently dropped in haste; for one of her well-known jewelled fastenings lay glittering in his hand.  But—­Mrs. Gen. Merrick lived quite in another quarter of the world; and in no case did the direct road from Merricksdale lead by here.

If Rollo’s senses had been alive before, which was but their ordinary and normal condition, he was now in the frame of mind of a Sioux on the war-path, and in corresponding alertness and acuteness of every faculty.  The little glove was swiftly put where it would furnish a spot of light to no one else; and in breathless readiness for action, though that is rhetorical, for Rollo’s breath was as regular and as calm as cool nerves could make it, he subsided again into the utter inaction which is all eye and ear.  And then in a few minutes, from across the road again, and near where he was at first, came these soft words: