The girls had entered the dressing-room, and were putting away books and sewing materials in their lockers, when Maisie exclaimed:
"Oh, what a bother! I've left my work-basket on the grass. It was open, too, and if there's a heavy dew my scissors and crewel needles will be covered with rust. Lettice, do go and fetch it for me!—there's just time."
Lettice was so accustomed to wait upon her elder sister that she did not even remonstrate, but turned straightway and ran into the garden to fetch the lost property. It had grown suddenly very dusk, almost dark. The lime tree stood out tall and black by the side of the house, and the bushes were dense masses of shadow. Lettice had to grope for the basket, but found it at last, and began to retrace her steps along the hardly-discernible path. She was about twenty yards away from the lime tree when a slight noise made her look back, and she noticed the figure of a girl swinging herself down by the branches in the same way as Honor had done. Whoever it was alighted on the ground gently, and rushed off into the bushes before Lettice could see her face, though it would have been too dark, in any case, to distinguish her features. It was all done very quickly, and so silently that, except for the first sound, there was scarcely a rustle.
Lettice was in a great hurry, and did not stop to make any investigation; indeed, she did not trouble to give the matter a thought. It seemed a trifling little incident, not even worth mentioning to the others; yet it was one that she was to remember afterwards, in view of certain events that followed, for it was destined to make a link in the strangest chain of circumstances that ever occurred at St. Chad's.
CHAPTER XIV
A Stolen Meeting
Honor had hurried with the other girls from the garden, laughing and joking as she went, and was almost in the act of running into the house when quite unexpectedly something happened, something utterly amazing and out of the common, and which was to be fraught with entirely unlooked-for consequences. As she put her foot on the first of the steps that led to the side door a figure moved silently from under the shade of a lilac bush close by, and, tapping her upon the arm, drew her aside with a whispered "Sh-sh!"
Honor suppressed an exclamation of astonishment, and, peering through the dusk to see who thus accosted her, recognized Annie, an under-housemaid who had only lately come to St. Chad's.
"I've been waiting to catch you alone, miss," whispered the girl, "and a difficult matter it's been too. I didn't dare speak to you before the other young ladies. I'm to give you this letter, safe into your own hand. I'd never have done it if I hadn't promised so faithful—it's almost as much as my place is worth!"