“I am so glad to see you, Mr. Eyrle. Dear me! how pleasant a little sociability is. I wish my dear young lady could see a little more of the world, she is so completely alone.”
Kenelm had a shrewd suspicion that if he chose to ask the bright-eyed little spinster any question, he could hear all she knew of the other lady’s history. There were times when Miss Hanson seemed about to confide in him, but he shrank with the delicacy of a true gentleman from knowing anything of her history until she chose to confide in him herself. It was not long before he knew more.
One day while reading that fashionable and veracious paper, The Daily Intelligencer, he saw a paragraph that struck him.
“We are informed,” said that most edifying of journals, “that the young and beautiful Lady P——, whose trial lately caused so great a sensation in the fashionable world, has sought and found refuge in one of the most picturesque parts of the county of B——.”
Kenelm Eyrle smiled to himself, thinking how contemptible was the custom of seeking out every detail of the life of a woman, supposed to be public property because she had been forced to appear before the public.
He remembered Lady P——’s trial; it had been the great sensation of the day. People had gloated over it, every detail of her life had been greedily devoured; every word she had spoken had been reported, the details of her appearance, her dress, her behavior during the trial had almost made the fortune of the daily papers. He had read but little of it, though he could not avoid hearing it continually spoken of. He had even laid the papers down in deep disgust, thinking to himself that they would not be worth the reading until all that nonsense was over. That even he himself would be ever so distantly connected with it did not occur to him.
He was going one bright May morning with some choice flowers to the Dower House, and when he came to the field he saw a strange man sitting where he could command a full view of the entrance. The man raised his head as Kenelm Eyrle passed him; he gave one keen glance into the handsome, patrician face, then turned aside.
Mr. Eyrle thought nothing of it; any casual stranger might have been sitting there; he would never have remembered the occurrence, but when he came somewhat quickly from the house he saw the same man hurrying quickly away. And that happened not once, but several times; it was not always the same man, but, strange to say, whenever he went to the Dower House there was always one of these suspicious strangers about. Once when he was walking by Mrs. Payton’s side in the pretty rose garden, he felt sure that among the trees in the shrubbery he saw a dark face peering. He gave a little cry, jumped over the hedge and was just in time to see a man hastening away through the woods. He would have followed, but a low cry from Mrs. Payton called him back. In one moment he was by her side.
“What is it?” she asked. “What made you run away so?”
“I saw some one watching us from behind those trees,” he replied.