第56章 ALICIA'S DIARY(31)

SECOND NIGHT

When the next night drew on the actions of the boy were almost enough to show that he was thinking of the meeting he had witnessed,and of the promise wrung from the lady that she would come there again.As far as the sheep-tending arrangements were concerned,to-night was but a repetition of the foregoing one.Between ten and eleven o'clock the old shepherd withdrew as usual for what sleep at home he might chance to get without interruption,making up the other necessary hours of rest at some time during the day;the boy was left alone.

The frost was the same as on the night before,except perhaps that it was a little more severe.The moon shone as usual,except that it was three-quarters of an hour later in its course;and the boy's condition was much the same,except that he felt no sleepiness whatever.He felt,too,rather afraid;but upon the whole he preferred witnessing an assignation of strangers to running the risk of being discovered absent by the old shepherd.

It was before the distant clock of Shakeforest Towers had struck eleven that he observed the opening of the second act of this midnight drama.It consisted in the appearance of neither lover nor Duchess,but of the third figure--the stout man,booted and spurred--who came up from the easterly direction in which he had retreated the night before.He walked once round the trilithon,and next advanced towards the clump concealing the hut,the moonlight shining full upon his face and revealing him to be the Duke.Fear seized upon the shepherd-boy:the Duke was Jove himself to the rural population,whom to offend was starvation,homelessness,and death,and whom to look at was to be mentally scathed and dumbfoundered.He closed the stove,so that not a spark of light appeared,and hastily buried himself in the straw that lay in a corner.

The Duke came close to the clump of furze and stood by the spot where his wife and the Captain had held their dialogue;he examined the furze as if searching for a hiding-place,and in doing so discovered the hut.The latter he walked round and then looked inside;finding it to all seeming empty,he entered,closing the door behind him and taking his place at the little circular window against which the boy's face had been pressed just before.

The Duke had not adopted his measures too rapidly,if his object were concealment.Almost as soon as he had stationed himself there eleven o'clock struck,and the slender young man who had previously graced the scene promptly reappeared from the north quarter of the down.

The spot of assignation having,by the accident of his running forward on the foregoing night,removed itself from the Devil's Door to the clump of furze,he instinctively came thither,and waited for the Duchess where he had met her before.

But a fearful surprise was in store for him to-night,as well as for the trembling juvenile.At his appearance the Duke breathed more and more quickly,his breathings being distinctly audible to the crouching boy.The young man had hardly paused when the alert nobleman softly opened the door of the hut,and,stepping round the furze,came full upon Captain Fred.

'You have dishonoured her,and you shall die the death you deserve!'

came to the shepherd's ears,in a harsh,hollow whisper through the boarding of the hut.

The apathetic and taciturn boy was excited enough to run the risk of rising and looking from the window,but he could see nothing for the intervening furze boughs,both the men having gone round to the side.

What took place in the few following moments he never exactly knew.

He discerned portion of a shadow in quick muscular movement;then there was the fall of something on the grass;then there was stillness.

Two or three minutes later the Duke became visible round the corner of the hut,dragging by the collar the now inert body of the second man.The Duke dragged him across the open space towards the trilithon.Behind this ruin was a hollow,irregular spot,overgrown with furze and stunted thorns,and riddled by the old holes of badgers,its former inhabitants,who had now died out or departed.

The Duke vanished into this depression with his burden,reappearing after the lapse of a few seconds.When he came forth he dragged nothing behind him.

He returned to the side of the hut,cleansed something on the grass,and again put himself on the watch,though not as before,inside the hut,but without,on the shady side.'Now for the second!'he said.

It was plain,even to the unsophisticated boy,that he now awaited the other person of the appointment--his wife,the Duchess--for what purpose it was terrible to think.He seemed to be a man of such determined temper that he would scarcely hesitate in carrying out a course of revenge to the bitter end.Moreover--though it was what the shepherd did not perceive--this was all the more probable,in that the moody Duke was labouring under the exaggerated impression which the sight of the meeting in dumb show had conveyed.

The jealous watcher waited long,but he waited in vain.From within the hut the boy could hear his occasional exclamations of surprise,as if he were almost disappointed at the failure of his assumption that his guilty Duchess would surely keep the tryst.Sometimes he stepped from the shade of the furze into the moonlight,and held up his watch to learn the time.

About half-past eleven he seemed to give up expecting her.He then went a second time to the hollow behind the trilithon,remaining there nearly a quarter of an hour.From this place he proceeded quickly over a shoulder of the declivity,a little to the left,presently returning on horseback,which proved that his horse had been tethered in some secret place down there.Crossing anew the down between the hut and the trilithon,and scanning the precincts as if finally to assure himself that she had not come,he rode slowly downwards in the direction of Shakeforest Towers.