“I am afraid they will be rather anxious about me,” said Daisy.
“If they value you as they ought,” I replied.
She smiled a little, and then, in a minute, we rounded a corner, and she said, “That is Helmscote we see through the trees.”
I looked, and saw a pile of chimneys and gables close before us and just a little distance removed from the lane. Along that side now ran a high, ancient-looking wall with a single door in it, opposite the house. Evidently this unostentatious postern was a back entrance, and the gates must open into some other road.
My fellow-ambassador paused and glanced in both directions, but there was no sign of any one but ourselves.
“I think it will be best if I leave you in the garden,” she said, “while I go in and find mother.”
“Yes, I think it will be wise,” I answered.
She took out a key and opened the door in the wall, and I found myself in an old flower-garden screened by a high hedge of evergreens at the farther end.
“Give me my coat and bag,” she said. “Many thanks for carrying them. Now just wait here. I shall be as quick as I can.”
I lit a cigar and began to pace the gravel path, keeping myself concealed behind the bushes as far as I could. Decidedly this had a flavor of adventure, and the longer I paced, the more did a certain restlessness of nerves grow upon me. I took out my watch. She had been gone ten minutes. Well, after all, I could scarcely expect her to return so soon as that. I paced and smoked again, and again took out my watch. Twenty minutes now, and no sign of my fellow-ambassador. I began to grow impatient and also to feel less the necessity for caution. No one had discovered me so far and no one was likely to; why should I not explore this garden a little farther? I ventured down to the farther end, till I stood behind the hedge. It was charmingly quiet and restful and sunny, with high trees looking over the walls and rooks flapping and cawing about their tops, and a glimpse of the house beyond. This glimpse was so pleasing that I thought I should like to see more, and, spying a garden roller propped against the wall and a niche in the stone above it, I gave a wary look round, and in a moment more had scrambled up till my feet were in the niche and my head looking over the top.