the ladder, immediately outside Betty's window. While Tupcombe
watched, a cloaked female figure stepped timidly over the sill, and
the two cautiously descended, one before the other, the young man's
arms enclosing the young woman between his grasp of the ladder, so
that she could not fall. As soon as they reached the bottom, young
Phelipson quickly removed the ladder and hid it under the bushes.
The pair disappeared; till, in a few minutes, Tupcombe could discern
a horse emerging from a remoter part of the umbrage. The horse
carried double, the girl being on a pillion behind her lover.

Tupcombe hardly knew what to do or think; yet, though this was not
exactly the kind of flight that had been intended, she had certainly
escaped. He went back to his own animal, and rode round to the
servants' door, where he delivered the letter for Mrs. Dornell. To
leave a verbal message for Betty was now impossible.

The Court servants desired him to stay over the night, but he would
not do so, desiring to get back to the Squire as soon as possible
and tell what he had seen. Whether he ought not to have intercepted
the young people, and carried off Betty himself to her father, he
did not know. However, it was too late to think of that now, and
without wetting his lips or swallowing a crumb, Tupcombe turned his
back upon King's-Hintock Court.

It was not till he had advanced a considerable distance on his way
homeward that, halting under the lantern of a roadside-inn while the
horse was watered, there came a traveller from the opposite
direction in a hired coach; the lantern lit the stranger's face as
he passed along and dropped into the shade. Tupcombe exulted for
the moment, though he could hardly have justified his exultation.