he garden door. 'But I'll have you
yet. Much reason you have to be too proud to stay with me. But it won't
last long; I shall marry you, madam, if I choose, as you'll see.'

When he was quite gone, and Anne had calmed down from the not altogether
unrelished fear and excitement that he always caused her, she returned to
her seat under the tree, and began to wonder what Festus Derriman's story
meant, which, from the earnestness of his tone, did not seem like a pure
invention. It suddenly flashed upon her mind that she herself had heard
voices in the garden, and that the persons seen by Farmer Derriman, of
whose visit and reclamation of his box the miller had told her, might
have been Matilda and John Loveday. She further recalled the strange
agitation of Miss Johnson on the preceding evening, and that it occurred
just at the entry of the dragoon, till by degrees suspicion amounted to
conviction that he knew more than any one else supposed of that lady's
disappearance.

It was just at this time that the trumpet-major descended to the mill
after his talk with his brother on the down. As fate would have it,
instead of entering the house he turned aside to the garden and walked
down that pleasant enclosure, to learn if he were likely to find in the
other half of it the woman he loved so well.

Yes, there she was, sitting on the seat of logs that he had repaired for
her, under the apple-tree; but she was not facing in his direction. He
walked with a noisier tread, he coughed, he shook a bough, he did
everything, in short, but the one thing that Festus did in the same
circumstances--call out to her. He would not have ventured on that for
the world. Any of his signs would have been sufficient to attract her a
day or two earlier; now she would not turn. At last, in his fond
anxiety, he did what he had never done before without an invitation, and
crossed over into Mrs. Garland's half of the garden, till he stood before
her.

When she could not escape him she arose, and, saying 'Good afternoon,
trumpet-major,' in a glacial manner unusual with her, walked away to
another part of the garden.

Loveday, quite at a loss, had not the strength of mind to persevere
further. He had a vague apprehension that some imperfect knowledge of
the previous night's unhappy business had reached her; and, unable to
remedy the evil without telling more than he dared, he went into the
mill, where his father still was, looking doleful enou