‘I liked the way she talked, and it seemed to come very easy to me after awhile,’ says the girl indifferently, not noticing his keen glance at her. ‘But this governess—this companion?’ asks she. ‘Will she want to go out—to be amused? If so, I could not have her. I shall never go out of this place until—’
‘Until?’ asks he.
‘You tell me that man has no longer any power over me. I’—she looks at him, and again terror whitens her face—‘I am sure you are wrong, and that he has the power to drag me away from this, if he finds me.’
‘I should advise you not to dwell on that until I have found him,’ says Wyndham, a little stiffly. The successful barrister is a little thrown back upon himself by being told that he will undoubtedly find himself in the wrong. ‘But this Mrs. Blaquiere, who was so kind to you—why do you not apply to her for protection?’
‘She and her husband and the children all went to Australia in the early part of last spring, and so I lost sight of them.’
‘Lost your situation, too?’—regarding her carefully.
‘Yes; and I had no time to look for another. Mrs. Moore grew ill then, and I had to attend her day and night until she died. The rest I have told you.’
‘I see,’ says Wyndham. ‘Tell me again this man Moore’s address.’ He writes it now in his pocket-book, though it was written well into his brain before; but he wished to see if she would falter about it the second time.
He bids her good-bye presently, refusing her timid offer of tea.
At the gate he finds Mrs. Denis, presumably tying up a creeper, but most undoubtedly on the look-out for him.