She drew in a deep breath of pleasure. Ah, this was-Her deep breath was arrested in the middle. What was that?
She leaned forward listening, her body tense.
Footsteps. On the zigzag path. Briggs. Finding her out.
Should she run?
No--the footsteps were coming up, not down. Some one from the village. Perhaps Angelo, with provisions.
She relaxed again. But the steps were not the steps of Angelo, that swift and springy youth; they were slow and considered, and they kept on pausing.
"Some one who isn't used to hills," thought Scrap.
The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her. She was afraid of nothing in life except love. Brigands or murderers as such held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she only would have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands and murderers and began instead to try and make love.
The next moment the footsteps turned the corner of her bit of path, and stood still.
"Getting his wind," thought Scrap, not looking round.
Then as he--from the sounds of the steps she took them to belong to a man--did not move, she turned her head, and beheld with astonishment a person she had seen a good deal of lately in London, the well-known writer of amusing memoirs, Mr. Ferdinand Arundel.
She stared. Nothing in the way of being followed surprised her any more, but that he should have discovered where she was surprised her. Her mother had promised faithfully to tell no one.
"You?" she said, feeling betrayed. "Here?"
He came up to her and took off his hat. His forehead beneath the hat was wet with the beads of unaccustomed climbing. He looked ashamed and entreating, like a guilty but devoted dog.
"You must forgive me," he said. "Lady Droitwich told me where you were, and as I happened to be passing through on my way to Rome I thought I would get out at Mezzago and just look in and see how you were."
"But--didn't my mother tell you I was doing a rest-cure?"
"Yes. She did. And that's why I haven't intruded on you earlier in the day. I thought you would probably sleep all day, and wake up about now so as to be fed."
"But--"
"I know. I've got nothing to say in excuse. I couldn't help myself."
"This," thought Scrap, "comes of mother insisting on having authors to lunch, and me being so much more amiable in appearance than I really am."