So the morning wore away. A shower or two passed down the valley, but under the thick tent of the beech leaves she scarcely felt it. She was, besides, dressed for bad weather; and the grey and mournful face of the day was in harmony with her mood.
There was something comforting in this high perch. She seemed more aloof from the troubles and despair of the last few days than she had imagined possible. There was a calm, a remoteness, about the grey mountains, disappearing and reappearing from behind their screen of cloud but unchanged and unmoved by what went on around and among them, that was in some way reassuring.
The burn that ran at the bottom of the hill on which she sat, hurrying down to the loch in such turbulent foaming haste, she was able to compare, with a sad smile, to herself. The loch, she thought, was wide and impassive as justice, which did not allow itself to be influenced by the emotions. The burn would get down just the same without so much turmoil and fuss; and she would see David's name cleared, equally surely, if she waited calmly on events, instead of burning her heart out in hopeless impatience and anxiety.
As she gazed, with some such thoughts as these, down to the stream that splashed on its way below her, her attention was caught by a movement in the bushes half-way down the steep slope at the top of which she was sitting.
The day was windless and no leaf moved on any tree. There must be some animal among the shrubs that covered the embankment, some large animal, since its movements caused so much commotion; for, as she watched, first one bush and then another stirred and bent and was shaken as if by something thrusting its way through the dense growth.
What could it be? A sheep, perhaps; there were many of them on the hillsides. This must be one that had strayed far from the rest. And yet would a sheep make so much stir? Juliet drew back a little behind the trunk of the beech-tree. Could it be a deer? She could not hear any sound of the creature's advance, for the air was full of the clamour of the burn, but she could trace the direction of its progress by shaking leaves and swinging boughs. It seemed to be gradually mounting the slope.
Suddenly a head emerged from the waving mass of a rhododendron, and with astonishment Juliet saw that it was that of Julia Romaninov.
Her first impulse was to lean forward and call her, but as she did so the cry died unheard upon her lips. For the manner of Julia's advance struck her as very odd. The girl was bending nearly double, and moving with a caution that seemed very strange and unnecessary. What was the matter? Was she stalking something? Crouching as she was in the bushes, she would not be seen by anyone on the path below. Did she not want to be seen? It looked more and more like it. But why in the world should Julia creep along as if she feared to be observed? Where was she going, and why?