"That's the way to speak to me. Be soft, and you can do what you like with me; be hard, and to save your life I wouldn't speak a word. The end of it was this. The swell had done with me, and thought I had done with him. Never more mistaken in his life. I was born curious, I was; so thinks I to myself, 'I'm blowed if I don't see what he's up to;' and when I turned the corner of the street and he thought I was gone for good, I come back, and there I was, you know, standing in the dark, out of sight. He walks back to the middle of the street, and stops right before this house, and looks up at Mary's--I beg your pardon, at Miss Parkinson's window. There's a light burning there, you know. He's got a letter in his hand, and what does he do but pick up a stone and tie them together. Then he picks up another stone, and throws it at Mary's window, and it opens and she looks out. I'm too far off to hear what they say to each other; but I suppose he says, 'Catch,' as he throws the letter up, and catch she does. And would you believe it? A little while afterwards down she comes and takes his arm as natural as life, and off they go together. I follow at a distance; I didn't want my neck twisted, and he looked the sort of cove that wouldn't mind doing it, so I keep at a safe distance, till he calls a growler, and in they get and drive away. And that's the end of it."
"It's a true story," said Mr. Parkinson. "When I went into her bedroom this morning, her window was open."
Those who had heard it gathered into groups, and discussed its various points; some suggesting that it looked as if the police were mixed up in it; others favoring Mark Inglefield's view that Mary Parkinson's statements to her father were false, from first to last. Meanwhile Mark Inglefield and Mr. Manners were left to themselves, the younger man congratulating himself that he had escaped being seen by Blooming Bess. His great anxiety now was to get away as quickly as possible, and, at the risk of offending Mr. Manners, he would have chosen the lesser evil, and have made an excuse for leaving him, had it not been that he was prevented by Blooming Bess, whose aimless footsteps had led her straight to Mark Inglefield, before whom she now stood. She gazed at him, and he at her. Her look was bold, saucy, reckless; his was apprehensive; but knowing, if she exposed him, that there was no alternative for him but to brazen it out, he did not decline the challenge expressed in her eyes. She said nothing, however, but slightly turned her head and laughed. As she turned she was accosted by Mr. Parkinson, who had joined this group.
"Did you see the man?" asked Mr. Parkinson.
"Did I see him?" she exclaimed. "Yes; though it was the middle of the night, and dark, I saw him as plain as I see you. Why, I could pick him out among a thousand."
But to Mark Inglefield's infinite relief she made no movement towards him; she merely looked at him again and laughed.
"Describe him," said Mr. Parkinson, roughly. "It may be a laughing matter to you, but it is not to us."
"To us!" retorted the girl. "What have these gentlemen got to do with it?"
"We are interested in it," said Mr. Manners.
"Oh, are you? And are you interested in it too, sir?" she asked, addressing Mark Inglefield.