“My friend?” said Freyberger, who saw across the grey face of his awful companion a shadow pass.
“Your friend, Mr Rogers,” said the girl. “He you brought the butterfly net for.”
He had distinctly told the stranger that he knew nobody in England, and that he had come down to Sonning moved by impulse and for no especial purpose save the search after the picturesque. In his surprise at the old man’s likeness to the man he was in search of he had quite forgotten the butterfly net—a serious mistake, as he was about to find out.
Another man might have entered into explanations or attempted to do so. Freyberger laughed in a brutal and cynical manner.
His whole being seemed to change in one swift moment.
He turned his back on the girl and, without vouchsafing an answer, said to the stranger, “Come.”
It was almost as if he had said, “I arrest you.”
They passed out together into the garden. The day was clouding over, and the last rays of sunshine fled as if from their presence as they followed the rose-bordered path to the little gate opening upon the road.