“Take your hat off, you blackguard, when you speak to a lady,” she said, and tossed his hat in an instant, across a ditch by which they were standing, into a pool on the other side.
This time the spy was on his guard. He knew as well as Miss Gwilt knew the use which might be made of the precious minutes, if he turned his back on her and crossed the ditch to recover his hat. “It’s well for you you’re a woman,” he said, standing scowling at her bareheaded in the fast-darkening light.
Miss Gwilt glanced sidelong down the onward vista of the road, and saw, through the gathering obscurity, the solitary figure of a man rapidly advancing toward her. Some women would have noticed the approach of a stranger at that hour and in that lonely place with a certain anxiety. Miss Gwilt was too confident
