The baronet went slowly and thoughtfully up the broad staircase, on his way to his rooms.
Sir Oswald Eversleigh passed the night of his sojourn at the 'Star' in broken slumbers. The events of the preceding day haunted him perpetually in his sleep, acting themselves over and over again in his brain. Sometimes he was with his nephew, and the young man was pleading with him in an agony of selfish terror; sometimes he was standing in the market-place, with the ghost-like figure of the vagrant ballad-singer by his side.
When he arose in the morning, Sir Oswald resolved to dismiss all thought of his nephew. His strange adventure of the previous night had exercised a very powerful influence upon his mind; and it was upon that adventure he meditated while he breakfasted.
"I have seen a landscape, which had no special charm in broad daylight, transformed into a glimpse of paradise by the magic of the moon," he mused as he lingered over his breakfast. "Perhaps this girl is a very ordinary creature after all—a mere street wanderer, coarse and vulgar."
But Sir Oswald stopped himself, remembering the refined tones of the voice which he had heard last night—the perfect self-possession of the girl's manner.
"No," he exclaimed, "she is neither coarse nor vulgar; she is no common street ballad-singer. Whatever she is, or whoever she is, there is a mystery around and about her—a mystery which it shall be my business to fathom."
When he had breakfasted, Sir Oswald Eversleigh sent for the ballad-singer.
"Be good enough to tell the young person that if she feels herself sufficiently rested and refreshed, I should like much to have a few minutes' conversation with her," said the baronet to the head-waiter.
In a few minutes the waiter returned, and ushered in the girl. Sir Oswald turned to look at her, possessed by a curiosity which was utterly unwarranted by the circumstances. It was not the first time in his life that he had stepped aside from his pathway to perform an act of charity; but it certainly was the first time he had ever felt so absorbing an interest in the object of his benevolence.
The girl's beauty had been no delusion engendered of the moonlight. Standing before him, in the broad sunlight, she seemed even yet more beautiful, for her loveliness was more fully visible.