Gerard looked at him, noted his black beard, his silk hat, his professional manner, and wondered whether he was a doctor called in to pronounce as to the sanity of the thief.
Then, with a heavy heart, after watching the door of the private room for a few minutes, the young man went out into the street. There for a couple of hours he wandered up and down, without seeing anyone come out who appeared to have any connection with the unhappy incident of the afternoon.
He made the circuit of the building, going round to the back entrances, where nothing unusual appeared to have disturbed the peace of the neighborhood. He feared that the party might have gone to the police-station long since, escaping quietly by some little-known door in order to avoid attention.
At last the hour for closing the stores arrived, and the last customer having left, Gerard watched the doors more keenly than ever, thinking that perhaps they would have decided not to leave the building until the customers had left.
Just as the shutters were closing, he saw a lady step out quickly and make a dash for the four-wheeled cab that was waiting outside.
Gerard uttered a low cry of surprise and relief.
It was Rachel, and she was alone. He stepped forward quickly, and saw that she was allowed to come out by herself, and that there was no one in the cab, the door of which the commissionaire was holding open.
“Miss Davison!” cried Gerard, with an air of triumph, which made her stop short, startled, and turn quickly to look at him. For a moment she stood as if not knowing what she was doing, or at whom she was looking, and he saw that she was not pale with the healthy pallor of every day, which he had so often admired, but with a ghastly whiteness that looked sickly and distressing.
“Oh,” she said faintly, “is it you, Mr. Buckland! Why—surely”—she uttered the words slowly, pausing between them, as if collecting thoughts that had gone very far away, and slowly coming back to the life of every day again—“surely—you—have not—been waiting for me all this time!”
She looked scared, and stared into his face as if she would have penetrated to his inmost thoughts.