considerably recovered from the panic-terror excited by the sudden
entrance of Wyatt.

'Thank Heaven, he's gone!' said the doctor; 'and less sour and
suspicious than I feared him to be. But tell me, sir, do you intend
walking from here to Hythe?'

'I so purpose. Why do you ask?'

'Because the young girl you saw in the bar went off ten minutes ago by
the same road. She was too late for a farmer's cart which she expected
to return by. Wyatt, too, is off in the same direction.'

'She will have company then.'

'Evil company, I fear. Her father and he have lately quarrelled; and
her, I know, he bears a grudge against, for refusing, as the talk
goes, to have anything to say to him.'

'Very well; don't alarm yourself. I shall soon overtake them, and you
may depend the big drunken bully shall neither insult nor molest her.
Good-night.'

It was a lonely walk for a girl to take on a winter evening, although
the weather was brilliantly light and clear, and it was not yet much
past seven o'clock. Except, perchance, a deer-keeper, or a
deer-stealer, it was not likely she would meet a human being for two
or three miles together, and farm and other houses near the track were
very sparsely scattered here and there. I walked swiftly on, and soon
came within sight of Wyatt; but so eagerly was his attention directed