And now a face peeps out—very cautiously, very nervously.
CHAPTER XXV.
‘Dear, if you knew what tears they shed
Who live apart from home and friend,
To pass my house, by pity led,
Your steps would tend.’
It is the face that had peeped out of the branches of the sycamore-tree a little while ago. A charming face! The eyes glance down the little lane, and then, suddenly seeing Susan, rest with a frightened expression on her. As this is the first time in all Susan’s experience that anyone has ever betrayed the smallest fear of her, she naturally gives herself up to the contemplation of her new-born slave. Her eyes and those of the mysterious stranger meet.
‘Oh, how pretty!’ thinks Susan to herself, but she says nothing, being lost in wonder and admiration; and the girl, peeping out of the doorway, as if disheartened, draws back again, and will in another minute disappear altogether, but for Carew.
He makes a sharp gesture.
‘Wait!’ cries he, in a low tone, though hardly conscious that he is speaking at all. And again the pretty frightened head comes into sight between the leaves of the luxuriant ivy that frames the gate.