He rode down through the woods, past the Calvary in the meadows, and came towards Holy Cross asleep amid the green. Moving amid the broken walls and arches he saw the girl spring down from the recess of a window, a gray cloak and hood upon her head and shoulders. She unbuckled the cloak and threw it aside as she came towards Jeffray over the grass, her black hair gleaming almost with a purplish lustre, her face aglow, her eyes shining. Jeffray had dismounted and thrown his bridle over the bough of a stunted thorn. He turned towards Bess with a curious shyness and a sense of rapid beating at the heart.
She laughed, showing the regular whiteness of her teeth, the lustre in her eyes increasing.
“I had to run from the hamlet,” she said, standing a little apart from him with her hands over her heart. “They have been bullying me again; it was yesterday, but the pistols kept them off. Mother Ursula is for me—now.”
Richard was watching her with an instinctive delight in the splendid aliveness of her beauty. There was something inevitable about her, a passionate naturalness that made Miss Jilian seem a tangle of affectations. Bess spoke out, looked straight with her keen, blue eyes, and did not ogle, flirt, or simper.
“I am sorry that they will not leave you in peace,” he said.
“Peace! There will be no peace for me unless I shoot Dan or run away or—”
She went red and looked troubled of a sudden, drooping her black lashes, and beating her hands together softly as though measuring out the rhythm of her thoughts. There was a wistfulness about her mouth that begot in Jeffray a great yearning to comfort her.
She lifted her chin and looked at him, the light welling up again into her eyes.
“Come to me at Rodenham. We can give you a home there—until—we see further into the future.”
Richard had almost spoken of his marriage, but had strangled the confession before it had been uttered. Bess was looking at him steadily with much forethought in her eyes. Richard’s chivalry did not wholly convince her; some self-conscious and intangible difficulty appeared to be hampering his mind.
“I thank you, Mr. Jeffray,” she said, slowly, “but—”
“You would be ashamed of me in your great house.”
Richard colored and looked at her appealingly.