At length, a little before Christmas, there came a night when Arabella kissed them all round and went off to her room much earlier than usual. And the fever in her eyes and lips was noted by Missy, and by Missy alone.
It was a night of stars only. The moon by which Missy had killed her one native cat, and nursed an infant opossum, had waxed and waned. The night, when Mr. Teesdale took a breath of it last thing, looked black as soot. Twenty minutes later, the farmhouse was in utter darkness; not a single ray from a single window; and so it remained for nearly two hours.
Then suddenly a light shone in the parlour for a single instant only. The outer door of the little gun-room was now opened, as noiselessly as might be, and shut again, hairbreadth by hairbreadth. The odd thing was, that this happened not once, but twice within five minutes. And each time it was a woman's figure that stood up under the stars, and then stole forth into the night.
There were two of them; and while the first went swiftly in a given direction (towards the timbered gully), the second made a quick circuit of the premises, and, as it happened, intercepted the first among the trees as though she had been lying in wait there for hours. Then it was "O Missy!" and Arabella uttered a stifled, terrified scream.
"Yes, it's Missy," said that young woman soberly. "And I wonder what we're doing out here at this time of night, both of us?"
"I'm having a walk," said Arabella, giggling half hysterically.
"That's exactly what I'm doing; so we can walk together."
"You've followed me out, you mean liar!" cried Arabella, with wholly hysterical wrath. She had, indeed, been for pushing forward after the first shock, but when Missy stepped out alongside there was nothing for it but a pitched battle on the spot.
"I have so," said Missy. "I know all about it, you see."
"And what am I after, since you're so mighty clever?"
"What man?" Arabella was quaking pitifully. "The man you're always meeting; but to-night you meant to run away with him."
"Spy!" said Arabella. "What makes you think that?"
"But what makes you think there is a man at all?"
"Oh, I saw that ages ago; though mind you, I have never seen _him_. It is the man with the meerschaum pipe, now isn't it?"