"Here it is, then," he muttered."I wonder - "Without completing the sentence he slipped through the gate, which was not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched down in the shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the gravel path leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself for a long vigil.
An hour passed, and another.Nothing had happened - he had seen nothing, heard nothing, save for the passing of an occasional vehicle or pedestrian on the road, and he himself had never stirred or moved, so that he seemed one with the night and one with the shadows where he crouched, and a pair of field-mice that had come from the common opposite went to and fro about their busy occupations at his feet without paying him the least attention.
Another hour passed, and at last there began to be signs of life about the house.
A light shone in one window and in another, and vanished, and soon the door opened and there appeared two people on the threshold, clearly visible in the light of a strong incandescent gas-burner just within the hall.
The watcher in the garden moved a little to get a clearer view.
In the paroxy** of terror at this sudden coming to life of what they had believed to be a part of the bushes, the two little field-mice scampered away, and Dunn bit his lip with annoyance, for he knew well that some of those he had had traffic with in the past would have been very sure, on hearing that scurrying-off of the frightened mice, that some one was lurking near at hand.
But the two in the lighted doorway opening on the veranda heard and suspected nothing.
One was a man, one a woman, both were young, both were extraordinarily good-looking, and as they stood in the blaze of the gas they made a strikingly handsome and attractive picture on which, however, Dunn seemed to look from his hiding-place with hostility and watchful suspicion.
"How dark it is, there's not a star showing," the girl was saying.
"Shall you be able to find your way, even with the lantern? You'll keep to the road, won't you?"Her voice was low and pleasant and so clear Dunn heard every word distinctly.She seemed quite young, not more than twenty or twenty-one, and she was slim and graceful in build and tall for a woman.Her face, on which the light shone directly, was oval in shape with a broad, low forehead on which clustered the small, unruly curls of her dark brown hair, and she had clear and very bright brown eyes.The mouth and chin were perhaps a little large to be in absolute harmony with the rest of her features, and she was of a dark complexion, with a soft and delicate bloom that would by itself have given her a right to claim her possession of a full share of good looks.She was dressed quite simply in a white frock with a touch of colour at the waist and she had a very flimsy lace shawl thrown over her shoulders, presumably intended as a protection against the night air.
Her companion was a very tall and big man, well over six feet in height, with handsome, strongly-marked features that often bore an expression a little too haughty, but that showed now a very tender and gentle look, so that it was not difficult to guess the state of his feelings towards the girl at his side.His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, and his whole build powerful in the extreme, and Dunn, looking him up and down with the quick glance of one accustomed to judge men, thought that he had seldom seen one more capable of holding his own.
Answering his companion 's remark, he said lightly:
"Oh, no, I shall cut across the wood, it's ever so much shorter, you know.""But it's so dark and lonely," the girl protested."And then, after last week - "He interrupted her with a laugh, and he lifted his head with a certain not unpleasing swagger.
"I don't think they'll trouble me for all their threats," he said.
"For that matter, I rather hope they will try something of the sort on.They need a lesson.""Oh, I do hope you'll be careful," the girl exclaimed.
He laughed again and made another lightly-confident, almost-boastful remark, to the effect that he did not think any one was likely to interfere with him.
For a minute or two longer they lingered, chatting together as they stood in the gas-light on the veranda and from his hiding-place Dunn watched them intently.It seemed that it was the girl in whom he was chiefly interested, for his eyes hardly moved from her and in them there showed a very grim and hard expression.
"Pretty enough," he mused."More than pretty.No wonder poor Charles raved about her, if it's the same girl - if it is, she ought to know what's become of him.But then, where does this big chap come in?"The "big chap" seemed really going now, though reluctantly, and it was not difficult to see that he would have been very willing to stay longer had she given him the least encouragement.
But that he did not get, and indeed it seemed as if she were a little bored and a little anxious for him to say good night and go.
At last he did so, and she retired within the house, while he came swinging down the garden path, passing close to where Dunn lay hidden, but without any suspicion of his presence, and out into the high road.
