When Esther turned hastily to regain the vehicle, she beheld the lad retreating with strange speed from the spot.
"What can this mean?" she thought within herself. "Who is it that is thus watching my movements?"
And, seriously alarmed, she hurried back to the coach, giving orders to be driven direct to Great Ormond Street.
Away went the vehicle again; and the noise of crowded Holborn prevented the Jewess from judging by sounds whether the other hackney-coach was following——for that she was watched, she had no longer any doubt.
Suddenly a suspicion struck her like an icy chill. Could her father have employed spies to dog her—to mark her movements? Circumstances, on the one hand, suggested the probability of such an occurrence; while, on the other, the character of her parent was of a nature repugnant to such a proceeding. He was stern and severe, but strictly honourable; and Esther knew that he was not a man likely to adopt underhand measures.
Then wherefore was she watched? and why had the lad crept close up to her as she put the letter into the box?
The coach had turned up Gray's Inn Lane, which thoroughfare was more quiet than Holborn; and Esther could hear no sounds of a second vehicle.
Our readers are probably aware that the generality of hackney-coaches have, or rather had (for they are nearly extinct at the present day) a little window behind, covered with a sort of flap made of the same material as the lining.
Esther turned round and raised the flap to assure herself that there was really no vehicle following the one in which she was. But at the same instant a face disappeared as if it had suddenly sunk into the earth; but not before the Jewess had recognised the pale features and dark eyes of the lad.
A faint cry escaped her lips; and she fell back on the seat, a prey to vague but serious alarm.