But the place was very quiet, and I do not know how it
was that I surprised Clon instead of being surprised by him.
He was walking along the path before me with his eyes on the
ground--walking so slowly, and with his lean frame so bent that I
might have supposed him ill if I had not remarked the steady
movement of his head from right to left, and the alert touch with
which he now and again displaced a clod of earth or a cluster of
leaves. By-and-by he rose stiffly, and looked round him
suspiciously; but by that time I had slipped behind a trunk, and
was not to be seen; and after a brief interval he went back to
his task, stooping over it more closely, if possible, than
before, and applying himself with even greater care.
By that time I had made up my mind that he was tracking someone.
But whom? I could not make a guess at that. I only knew that
the plot was thickening, and began to feel the eagerness of the
chase. Of course, if the matter had not to do with Cocheforet,
it was no affair of mine; but though it seemed unlikely that
anything could bring him back so soon, he might still be at the
bottom of this.
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