"Why, how nervous you are!" she said, laughing softly, but a little timidly, for she had seen him start, and felt the pressure of his hand. "Who should it be but my friend, Miss Lisle?"
"Miss—Lisle!" he repeated.
Something in his voice startled Lucy, and she shrank from him the slightest bit in the world. But he noticed it, and he put his arm round her.
"Your—your fellow teacher is called Leslie Lisle?" he said.
"I didn't say 'Leslie,'" said Lucy, half-frightened; "but it is Leslie."
As she spoke, a tall, slim figure in a white dress appeared against the dim background of the open doorway, then came towards them, then stopped.
"Is that you, Lucy? You are not alone——." As she stopped her eyes glanced quickly from one to the other, dilating as she looked; then her face grew crimson, and she spoke his name: "Ralph!"
"Leslie!" he answered, and made a movement towards her; then, as if suddenly remembering the wondering, frightened girl on his arm, stopped.
"You—you know one another!" said Lucy, at last, in a kind of gasp. "Oh, what does it mean?"
Ralph Duncombe, the ever ready, self-possessed city man, the man whose clerks regarded him as of iron rather than flesh and blood, stood biting his lip, and staring at the white figure motionless and dumb.