Wardour's ears were
as sharp as her eyes. The very sound of her own voice in the
moonlight would terrify her. She opened the lattice softly, and
gently shaking her head--she dared not shake it vigorously--was
on the point of closing it again, when, making frantic signs of
entreaty, the man stepped into the moonlight, and it was plainly
Tom. It was too dreadful! He might be seen any moment! She shook
her head again, in a way she meant, and he understood, to mean
she dared not. He fell on his knees and laid his hands together
like one praying. Her heart interpreted the gesture as indicating
that he was in trouble, and that, therefore, he begged her to go
to him. With sudden resolve she nodded acquiescence, and left the
window.
Her room was in a little wing, projecting from the back of the
house, over the kitchen. The servants' rooms were in another
part, but Letty forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked
also upon the ricks. There was a back stair to the kitchen, and
in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair,
and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more
she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like
a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she
came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left
him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in
the moonlight.
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