Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited, was not going to let her escape him
thus. He approached, and set about turning over the heaps one by one.
As soon as he paused, tantalized and puzzled, he was directed anew by
an imitative kiss which came from her hiding-place, and by snatches of
a local ballad in the smallest voice she could assume: "O come in from the foggy, foggy dew."
In a minute or two he uncovered her.
"Oh, 'tis not Tim!" said she, burying her face.
Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its
mildness, stooped and imprinted the purposed kiss, then sunk down on
the next hay-cock, panting with his race.
"Whom do you mean by Tim?" he asked, presently.
"My young man, Tim Tangs," said she.
"Now, honor bright, did you really think it was he?"
"I did at first."
"But you didn't at last?"
"I didn't at last."
"Do you much mind that it was not?"
"No," she answered, slyly.
Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suke looked
very beautiful, the scratches and blemishes incidental to her out-door
occupation being invisible under these pale rays. While they remain
silent the coarse whir of the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically
from the top of a tree at the nearest corner of the wood. Besides this
not a sound of any kind reached their ears, the time of nightingales
being now past, and Hintock lying at a distance of two miles at least.
In the opposite direction the hay-field stretched away into remoteness
till it was lost to the eye in a soft mist.