Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/151

 might be, why he had come, and as she recollected a chance phrase spoken by the farmer's wife beside the river, "did he have a sharp, selfish face?"

"Why, I think so." David spoke so very slowly that she could have shaken him for his deliberation. "Yes, I rather think he did. He had scowling black eyebrows and eyes very close together. Yes, I would put it just that way myself, a sharp, selfish face."

That was the way Mrs. Bassett had put it, and Michael also. Elizabeth swung her feet over to the other side of the wall, the weird, moving light quite forgotten.

"I am going back," she said. "It must be that cousin, Donald Reynolds. I do believe he was waiting in the lane for Miss Miranda to go out, so that he could find her father alone. And she has always dreaded his coming. Oh, why didn't we think who it was before!"

"But—but—" stammered David, quite dazed.

One more minute and that hidden figure would move across the moon, but she had no thought for that mystery now. She jumped down outside the wall and ran, ran with all breathless speed, stumbling in the thick grass and over jutting roots and stones until she came out at last into the moonlit lane. Her heart was thumping against her side and Miss Miranda's gate looked very far. She sped down the