Only a few days before she would not have allowed this to pass without some mischievous allusion to his mysterious sweetheart; it troubled her greatly now to find that she could not bring herself to this household pleasantry, and that her lip trembled and her eye grew moist as he parted from her.
The afternoon passed slowly; he had said he might not return to supper until late, nevertheless a strange restlessness took possession of her as the day wore on.

She put aside her work, the darning of his stockings, and rambled aimlessly through the woods.

She had wandered she knew not how far, when she was suddenly seized with the same vague sense of a foreign presence which she had felt before.

Could it be Curson again, with a word of warning?
No! she knew it was not he; so subtle had her sense become that she even fancied that she detected in the invisible aura projected by the unknown no significance or relation to herself or Low, and felt no fear.

Nevertheless she deemed it wisest to seek the protection of her sylvan bower, and hurried swiftly thither.
But not so quickly nor directly that she did not once or twice pause in her flight to examine the new-comer from behind a friendly trunk.