“Then I told her. I told her that from that hour I had been unable to rid my mind of her face, that it had haunted me; that I had followed her and learned her address; and that though I had lost her I had sought her all over London.”
“Was she angry?” asked Jack.
“At first she was,” said Leonard, “very angry, but something in my voice or my face—Heaven knows I was earnest enough! convinced her that I meant no harm, and she listened.”
“Well,” said Jack, interested and excited.
“Well,” said Leonard, “we sat talking for an hour, perhaps more, and she has promised to meet me again; at least she admitted that she walked in the park every afternoon. I tried to get her address, but she told me plainly that she would not give it to me.”
“And is that all you learned?” asked Jack, with something like good-natured contempt.
“No!” replied Leonard. “I learned that she had been injured—oh, not in the way you think—and that she had some purpose to effect—some wrong to right.”
“And of course you offered to help her?” said Jack.
“I offered to help her; I laid my services, my whole time and strength, at her disposal; I went so far as to beseech her to tell me what this purpose, this wrong was; but she would not tell me, and so we parted. But we are to meet again. She is much changed; paler and thinner than when I saw her in the railway carriage, but still more beautiful in my eyes than any other woman in the world.”
“It is a strange affair,” mused Jack. “Quite a romance in its way. Isn’t it funny, Len, that both our love affairs should be romantic, and so much alike!”