CHAPTER XXI. A MYSTERY SOLVED.
When Winifred had returned to the convent, I waited patiently for Roderick's coming, which I knew could not be long delayed. Indeed, before the week was out his card was brought to me where I sat at my sitting-room fire. I glanced up at him as he entered the room. His face was grave, even stern in its expression, reminding me forcibly of Niall. After the ordinary salutations had been exchanged, he stood before me silent a moment; then he said, with an abruptness quite foreign to his manner:
"I think you will agree with me that this is no time for commonplaces. I have come to know the meaning of this mystery."
"Mystery!" I repeated vaguely; for, with all my planning and thinking what I should say when he came, I was still hopelessly at a loss, and resolved to be guided by the event.
"Yes, mystery," he declared emphatically. "I saw in your company the very child of whom I told you I had had a glimpse and whom I was so eager to see again."
"But how could I know that the child with me was the one who had attracted your attention?"
"Well, in the first place," he answered, looking at me keenly, "I gave you a tolerably accurate description of the girl in question. The type is not a very common one, and might, I think be easily recognized."