He had been suddenly wrenched out of one
set of thoughts into another profoundly different. It was his shadow,
together with Cynthia Walford's, that the Sergeant and the stranger had
seen on Doctor Mary's blind. After "walking her home," he had--well, just
not proposed to Cynthia, restrained more by those scruples of his than by
any ungraciousness on the part of the lady. Even his modesty could not
blind him to this fact. He was full of pity, of love, of a man's joyous
sense of triumph, half wishing that he had made his proposal, half glad
that he had not, just because it, and its radiant promise, could still be
dangled in the bright vision of the future. He was in the seventh heaven
of romance, and his heaven was higher than that which most men reach; it
was built on loftier foundations.
Then came the flash of the torch; the high spirits born of one experience
sought an outlet in another. "By Jove, I'll track 'em--like old times!"
he murmured, with a low light laugh. And, just for fun, he did it, taking
to the heath beside the road, twisting his long body in and out amongst
gorse, heather, and bracken, very noiselessly, with wonderful dexterity.
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