‘She is in love with him!’ exclaimed Owen; ‘fancy that!’

’Ah—­that’s what everybody says who has been keen enough to notice anything.  I said so at first.  And yet now I cannot persuade myself that she is in love with him at all.’

‘Why can’t you?’

’She doesn’t act as if she were.  She isn’t—­you will know I don’t say it from any vanity, Owen—­she isn’t the least jealous of me.’

‘Perhaps she is in some way in his power.’

’No—­she is not.  He was openly advertised for, and chosen from forty or fifty who answered the advertisement, without knowing whose it was.  And since he has been here, she has certainly done nothing to compromise herself in any way.  Besides, why should she have brought an enemy here at all?’

’Then she must have fallen in love with him.  You know as well as I do, Cyth, that with women there’s nothing between the two poles of emotion towards an interesting male acquaintance.  ’Tis either love or aversion.’

They walked for a few minutes in silence, when Cytherea’s eyes accidentally fell upon her brother’s feet.

‘Owen,’ she said, ’do you know that there is something unusual in your manner of walking?’

‘What is it like?’ he asked.

’I can’t quite say, except that you don’t walk so regularly as you used to.’

The woman behind the hedge, who had still continued to dog their footsteps, made an impatient movement at this change in their conversation, and looked at her watch again.  Yet she seemed reluctant to give over listening to them.

‘Yes,’ Owen returned with assumed carelessness, ’I do know it.  I think the cause of it is that mysterious pain which comes just above my ankle sometimes.  You remember the first time I had it?  That day we went by steam-packet to Lulstead Cove, when it hindered me from coming back to you, and compelled me to sleep with the gateman we have been talking about.’

‘But is it anything serious, dear Owen?’ Cytherea exclaimed, with some alarm.

’O, nothing at all.  It is sure to go off again.  I never find a sign of it when I sit in the office.’

Again their unperceived companion made a gesture of vexation, and looked at her watch as if time were precious.  But the dialogue still flowed on upon this new subject, and showed no sign of returning to its old channel.

Gathering up her skirt decisively she renounced all further hope, and hurried along the ditch till she had dropped into a valley, and came to a gate which was beyond the view of those coming behind.  This she softly opened, and came out upon the road, following it in the direction of the railway station.

Presently she heard Owen Graye’s footsteps in her rear, his quickened pace implying that he had parted from his sister.  The woman thereupon increased her rapid walk to a run, and in a few minutes safely distanced her fellow-traveller.

The railway at Carriford Road consisted only of a single line of rails; and the short local down-train by which Owen was going to Budmouth was shunted on to a siding whilst the first up-train passed.  Graye entered the waiting-room, and the door being open he listlessly observed the movements of a woman wearing a long grey cloak, and closely hooded, who had asked for a ticket for London.