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Updated: June 19, 2025
Then with infinite caution, Marmaduke de Chavasse worked his way between the trees towards the old wall which encircled his park. The three men obviously would be going back either to Acol Court, or mayhap, straight to the village.
At the moment he had imagined that they were some village folk, wending their way towards Acol: now he was conscious of nerve-racking irritation at the thought that if he had only turned the mare's head back toward the Court as he had at one time intended to do he could have averted this present meeting it almost seemed like a confrontation here, in this cottage on the self-same spot, where thought of murder had first struck upon his brain.
"I was making a home for thee," he repeated without heeding her flippant observation, "by rendering myself illustrious. I told thee, wench, did I not? that something was happening within the precincts of Acol Court, and that it is my duty to lie in wait and to watch. The heiress is about to be abducted, and it is my task to frustrate the evil designs of the mysterious criminal."
"Thou'lt meet me to-night," he said loudly and threateningly now, "thou'lt meet me on the path near the cliffs of Epple Bay half an hour before midnight, and if thou hast lied to me, I'll throw thee over and Thanet then will be rid of thee ... but if thou dost not come, I'll to my brother Richard even before the church clock of Acol hath sounded the hour of midnight."
It was a mere outline only vaguely defined against the background of trees, but in that outline Lambert had already recognized the mysterious stranger who lodged in his brother's cottage down in Acol. The fixed intensity of the young man's gaze caused Sue to turn and to look in the same direction.
Undoubtedly even in these days of more than primitive simplicity and of sober habiliments Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy, butler at Acol Court in the county of Kent, and his henchman, Master Courage Toogood, would have been conspicuous for the shabbiness and poverty of the livery which they wore. The hour was three in the afternoon.
Now Sir Marmaduke cursed himself and his folly for having made this arrangement. He had not known when he made it that Richard would be back at Acol then. Adam the smith, never came home before eight o'clock and the old Quakeress herself would not have been much in the way.
Ashamed of his outburst he tried to hide his confusion from her, by sinking on one knee on that soft carpet of moss. From the little village of Acol beyond the wood, came the sound of the church bell striking the hour of nine. Sue was silent and absorbed, intensely sorrowful to see the grief of her friend.
She did not even think it strange that he gave her no explanation of the reason why he should not return to his lodgings at Acol. She felt like a somnambulist, and wondered how soon she would wake and find herself in her small and uncomfortable bed at the Court.
There was a cheerful blaze on the hearth, and the room itself being small always looked cozier than any other at Acol Court. Nevertheless, Editha's face was pallid and drawn, and she stared into the fire with eyes which seemed aglow with anxiety and even with fear.
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