“Can you show me the way to the best hotel?” asked Hamilton.
“To be sure I can—for what else am I here every night, wet or dry!” answered the man, good-humouredly, as he placed Hamilton’s luggage in the wheelbarrow. “If you have no objection, sir, I’ll take the lady’s things too.”
“By all means,” said Hamilton, looking towards the dark figure, which now rose and endeavoured to assist the man to move a rather large trunk.
“Allow me,” said Hamilton, instantly taking her place; and everything was soon arranged.
“Thank you a thousand times,” whispered the lady, placing her arm within his almost familiarly; and Hamilton, half surprised, half amused, looked somewhat curiously at his companion as she afterwards unreservedly drew closer to him, and at last clasped her small well-gloved hands over his arm. They followed for some minutes in silence the man with the wheelbarrow, who trudged on before them whistling; but as they drew near to one of the miserable street lamps Hamilton leant forward and endeavoured rather unceremoniously to peer under his companion’s bonnet; a thick veil rendered the effort fruitless.
“You wish to see my face,” she said, in a voice that made him stop suddenly, with an exclamation of astonishment; and when she pushed aside her veil the flickering light played dimly over the well-known features of Hildegarde.
And where were Hamilton’s doubts and fears at that moment?—removed?—dispersed? No; but they were dormant—sleeping as soundly, perhaps as uneasily, as he had been doing about an hour before. He scarcely understood Hildegarde, as with repeated assurances that she was very, very glad to see him again, she incoherently related that she had travelled to Wurtzburg with some friends of Mademoiselle Hortense’s; they had been very kind, and had insisted on her remaining with them a couple of days, to recover from the fatigue of her night journey; that they had accompanied her to the coach, and advised her to sleep at Aschaffenburg; that she had recognised Hamilton’s voice when speaking to Hans, had seen his face when the man demanded his passport, “And then,” she added, “I knew that all my difficulties about travelling were at an end; so I sat down on my trunk and waited to see when you would recognise me!”
“How could I recognise your voice when you whispered, or your face, when covered with that impervious veil? Indeed, it is impossible to see anything at a few feet distance from these lamps, which seem but intended to make the ‘darkness visible.’ The moment you spoke I knew you.”
“That I expected,” said Hildegarde; “otherwise I should have been tempted to preserve my incognito a little longer.”
“I am very glad you did not—but where is the man with our bags and boxes?” he cried, looking round. He was no longer visible, though they could still indistinctly hear the sound of the jogging of the wheelbarrow over the rough paving-stones in the distance. With a merry laugh they ran together down the street, and overtook him just as he rolled his clumsy little vehicle under an archway, lighted by two handsome lamps, and where their arrival was immediately announced by the ringing of a large bell.