Cobwebs and Cables | Page 9

I am. I try to catch hold of the
feeling and keep it, but it slips away somehow. Only I thank God I am
happy."
"I was never happy enough to thank God," Felicita murmured, lying
back in her seat and shutting her eyes. Presently the children returned,
and, after another silent row, slower and more toilsome, as it was up the
river, they drew near home again, and saw Madame's anxious face
watching for them over the low garden wall. Her heart had been too
heavy for her to join them in their pleasure-taking, and it was no lighter
now.
CHAPTER IV.
UPFOLD FARM.
Phebe rode slowly homeward in the dusk of the evening, her brain too
busy with the varied events of the day for her to be in any haste to
reach the end. For the last four miles her road lay in long by-lanes,
shady with high hedgerows and trees which grew less frequent and
more stunted as she rose gradually higher up the long spurs of the hills,
whose rounded outlines showed dark against the clear orange tint of the

western sky. She could hear the brown cattle chewing the cud, and the
bleating of some solitary sheep on the open moor, calling to the flock
from which it had strayed during the daytime, with the angry yelping of
a dog in answer to its cry from some distant farm-yard. The air was
fresh and chilly with dew, and the low wind, which only lifted the
branches of the trees a little in the lower land she had left, was growing
keener, and would blow sharply enough across the unsheltered
table-land she was reaching. But still she loitered, letting her rough
pony snatch tufts of fresh grass from the banks, and shamble leisurely
along as he strayed from one side of the road to another.
Phebe was not so much thinking as pondering in a confused and
unconnected manner over all the circumstances of the day, when
suddenly the tall figure of a man rose from under the black hedgerow,
and laid his arm across the pony's neck, with his face turned up to her.
Her heart throbbed quickly, but not altogether with terror.
"Mr. Roland!" she cried.
"You know me in the dark then," he answered. "I have been watching
for you all day, Phebe. You come from home?"
She knew he meant his home, not hers.
"Yes, it was Felix's birthday, and we have been down the river," she
said.
"Is anything known yet?" he asked.
Though it was so solitary a spot that Phebe had passed no one for the
last three miles, and he had been haunting the hills all day without
seeing a soul, yet he spoke in a whisper, as if fearful of betraying
himself.
"Only that you are away," she replied; "and they think you are in
London."
"Is not Mr. Clifford come?" he asked.

"No, sir, he comes to-morrow," she answered.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, in a louder tone. When he spoke again he
did so without looking into her face, which indeed was scarcely visible
in the deepening dusk.
"Phebe," he said, "we have known each other for many years."
"All my life, sir," she responded eagerly; "father and me, we are proud
of knowing you."
Before speaking again he led her pony up the steep lane to a gate which
opened on the moorland. It was not so dark here, from under the
hedgerows and trees, and a little pool beside the gate caught the last
lingering light in the west, and reflected it like a dim and dusty mirror.
They could see one another's faces; his was working with strong
excitement, and hers, earnest and friendly, looked frankly down upon
him. He clasped her hand with the strong, desperate grip of a sinking
man, and her fingers responded with a warm clasp.
"Can I trust you, Phebe?" he cried. "I have no other chance."
"I will help you, even to dying for you and yours," she answered. The
girlish fervor of her manner struck him mournfully. Why should he
burden her with his crime? What right had he to demand any sacrifice
from her? Yet he felt she spoke the truth. Phebe Marlowe would rejoice
in helping, even unto death, not only him, but any other fellow-creature
who was sinking under sorrow or sin.
"Come on home," she said, "it is bitterly cold here; and you can tell me
what to do."
He placed himself at the pony's head again, and trudged on
speechlessly along the rough road, which was now nothing more than
the tracks made by cart-wheels across the moor, with deep ruts over
which he stumbled like a man who is worn out with fatigue. In a
quarter of an hour the low