One cloudy night a few days later Mostyn was walking home from the river where he had spent the day fishing. Thinking that he might shorten the way by so doing, he essayed a direct cut through the dense wood intervening between the river and Drake's. It was a mistake, for he had gone only a short way when he discovered that he had lost his bearings. He wandered here and there for several hours, and it was only when the moon, which had been under a cloud since sundown, came out, that he finally found a path which led him in the right direction.
He was nearing the house when in the vague light, due to the moon's being veiled again, he saw a man stealthily climb over the fence, stand as if watching the house for a moment, and then creep through the rose bushes and other shrubbery to the side of the house beneath the window of Dolly's room.
Wondering, and suspecting he knew not what, Mostyn crept to the fence, and, half-hidden behind an apple tree, he stood watching. The figure of the man was quite distinct against the white wall of the building, and yet it was impossible to make out who he was. Then a surprising thing happened. Mostyn saw the figure raise its hands to its lips, and a low whistle was emitted. There was a pause. Then the window of Dolly's room was cautiously raised, and her head appeared as she leaned over the sill.
"Is your father at home?" a muffled masculine voice was heard inquiring.
"No, he's been gone all day." It was plainly Dolly who was speaking.
The stares of the two seemed to meet. There was a pause. It was as if the girl's head had furtively turned to look back into the room.
"Then come down. Meet me at the front gate. I'll keep hid."
"Very well--in a minute."
She was gone. Mostyn saw the man glide along the side of the house, treading the grass softly and making his way round to the front gate. Filled with suspicion and hot fury, Mostyn kept his place, afraid that any movement on his part might too soon betray his presence to the man he now saw near the gate.
"My God," he cried, "she's like all the rest! I've been a fool--me, of all men! Here I've been thinking she was to be for me and me alone. This has been going on for God only knows how long. She has been fooling me with her drooping lashes and flushed cheeks. I was ready to marry her--fool, fool that I was. She might, for reasons of her own, have married me. There is no knowing what a woman will do. Bah! What a mollycoddle I have been! She, and he too, perhaps, have been laughing at me for the blind idiot I am--me, the man who thought he knew all there was to know about women."