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The straight brows went up a little; the man himself stiffened slightly. Without further words he moved across to the door into the conservatory and looked through it. He was in time to see Rufus's great, lounging figure sauntering away in the direction of the wood-yard. Knight stood a moment or two and watched him, then quietly turned and rejoined the girl.

She was in the woody hollow by Rufus's stone, blindfold, with arms stretched helplessly out, seeking for Rorie among the smooth beech-boles, with a dreadful sense of loneliness, and a fear that he was far away, and that she would perish, lost and alone, in that dismal wood. So the slow night wore on to morning.

He jumped and clawed at the sides in his frenzy, and Wallie could see that Rufus well might do so, for even as Wallie looked the water rushed in and rose to Rufus's ankles, and before he could get the bucket over the edge and started downward it was well to his knees, bubbling faster with every second as the opening widened.

At the peril of floggings from the Cheap Jack, too many of which had already scarred his thin shoulders, he ransacked his brains for telling subjects, and forced from his memory the lines which told most, and told most quickly, of the pathetic look on Rufus's face, the anger, pleasure, or playfulness of the mill cats.