"You would like to hear that he is well, perhaps."
"I am glad to hear that," Miss Wesden ventured to remark.
"He is in India still—I believe will remain there, marry and settle down there for good."
"Have you been watching my house to tell me this?"
"Partly, and partly for other reasons, for which I have a better excuse. I have been a wanderer—in search of happiness many years, and for the first time in a life not unadventurous there crosses my——"
"Good evening, sir—I have been entrapped into a conversation—I must beg you to leave me."
Harriet set off at the double again—in double quick time went the prowler after her.
People abroad that night began to notice the agitated girl, and the tall man marching on at her side, who, in his eagerness to keep step, trod on people's feet, and sent one doctor's boy, basket and bottles, crunching against a lamp-post; one or two stopped and looked after them and then continued their way—it was a race between the prowler and his victim, the prowler making a dead heat of it.
Harriet gave in at last—her spirit was not a very strong one, and she stopped and burst into tears.
"Sir, will you leave me?—will you believe that I don't want to hear a single word of your reasons for thus persecuting me?"