Lady Vera little guessed how her footsteps were dogged and her movements watched by this man whom she so loftily despised. She did not know that when she left London and retired to her country home for greater security from her enemies, that this lover, more ruthless than any foe, had followed her to her own neighborhood, and was playing the spy on her movements, eager to carry out his base design.
She little knew that it was Leslie Noble who had stolen the book from her lap when she fell asleep by the lake that sunny day.
In the advertisement that followed, the crafty wretch saw the accomplishment of his wicked purpose.
It was he who, in the guise of an old woman, had given little Hal that crafty letter for Lady Vera.
It was he who waited now in the cheap and common garb of an old and poverty-stricken crone, to meet the fair young girl who came so innocent and unsuspecting, with almost a smile of triumph on her lips as she thought of meeting Sir Harry Clive with her recovered treasure; thus Leslie Noble waited, like a great, poisonous, black spider weaving his web for his innocent prey.
She comes swiftly along the narrow footpath with a light, graceful step, wrapped in the long, dark circular cloak, and holding up with both hands the sweeping train of the delicate dinner-dress from contact with the dust and the dew.
The deepening twilight enfolds her in its dim, shadowy light, and lends a mysterious aspect to the bent figure of the old hag, who grasps with both hands the head of a thick, knotted stick, while she waits, with eyes bowed sullenly to the ground, for the lady's coming.
"Are you the person who sent for me?" Lady Vera asks, gently, as she comes to a pause opposite this forbidding-looking figure.
The hooded head of the old hag is slowly lifted in the darkness of the falling twilight. The eyes that regard her so intently are shielded by great goggle-glasses.
"Yes, if you are Lady Fairvale," is the answer, in a muffled voice, with a strange croak in it.