He noted through his glasses the very wall
behind which he had lit his pipe when the flare of his match revealed the
butt end of a pistol, and presently they were following the same winding
way above the beach.
This did not serve to make the playing of his part any the easier. It
filled him in fact with a continual fear of giving himself away by doing
something he had done before. It was really a most irrational fear; but
there it was. Under the circumstances his sustained babble and blink were
distinctly creditable.
But what gave him a more excusable cause for apprehension was Miss
Rendall's own attitude. That there was something on her mind, something
behind her words, he felt morally certain. She spoke in the most natural
way and on the most commonplace topics, but there were frequent silences
and it was during those he felt that without looking directly at him,
she was watching him. And once or twice he got it into his head that she
was a little puzzled and uncertain, though whether it was about what to
think or what to do, he had no conception. He told himself that all this
was only his own morbid imagination. Still, it made that walk an
uncomfortable ordeal and seldom did actor have to work harder to keep
his end up.
Luckily however the man had the virtue of impudence and not only did
he manage to entertain the lady with a garrulous account of his
antiquarian researches (reasoning acutely that women are seldom experts
in such matters), but he even ventured to broach a delicate subject for
his own ends.
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