“I want your permission, dear,” he went on, “to go to him. I suppose he calls himself your guardian. If he says no, you are of age. I just want you to believe that I am strong enough to put my arms around you and to carry you away to my own world and keep you there, although an army of Mr. Fentolin’s creatures followed us.”
She turned, and he saw the great transformation. Her face was brilliant, her eyes shone with wonderful things.
“Please,” she begged, “will you say or do nothing at all for a little time, until I tell you when? I want just a few days’ peace. You have said such beautiful things to me that I want them to lie there in my thoughts, in my heart, undisturbed, for just a little time. You see, we are at the village now. I am going to call at this third cottage. While I am inside, you can go and make what enquiries you like. Come and knock at the door for me when you are ready.”
“And we will walk back together?”
“We will walk back together,” she promised him.
“I will take you home another way. I will take you over what they call the Common, and come down behind the Hall into the gardens.”
She dismissed him with a little smile. He strolled along the village street and plunged into the mysterious recesses of the one tiny shop.
CHAPTER XXV
Hamel met Kinsley shortly before one o’clock the following afternoon, in the lounge of the Royal Hotel at Norwich.