"Hush! The one I told you of, who frightened me yesterday—the mad woman. Don't turn suddenly, but, after a second, look between those two lemon trees. She just glided past as we were speaking, down the walk from Villa Julia, and is hiding behind the shrubbery. She's waiting for me, John. This is getting terrible!"
"She shall have me," said Glynn grimly, his senses alert in a moment to the danger Posey ran.
"Don't make a scene with her—don't alarm daddy," she went on.
"Trust me," he answered briefly. "Do you go into the house, and stay there till I come. Say nothing to any one, and I'll rid you of your nightmare."
As Posey mutely obeyed him, albeit with a blanched face, Clandonald's saying came into Glynn's mind, "There's but one woman who would do this thing." Verily, Glynn would not have to go far to find her.
She arose from her bench as he approached—evidently badly scared. A man of his years and vigor and mastery of the situation had not entered into her calculations of this experience.
"You look surprised at seeing me here," she said rapidly, with perfectly well-bred ease. "I suppose it is trespass, but the villa had been so long unoccupied, we had got into the way of running into the garden from my aunt, Lady Campstown's, whose house is across the lane yonder."
He was for a moment thrown off his guard and bowed, acquiescing, as any gentleman would have done.
"However, I am just going," she added. "The little green door is very familiar to me, I assure you."
"Might I delay you one moment," he said courteously, "to ask what can be your motive in annoying and threatening the young lady of this house? I ask in her father's name, and we wish you to know that this must be absolutely the last time that you come into these grounds."