"And so you will not let me come, Miss Hereford! Well, perhaps you are right: it never occurred to me that the family might feel annoyed at it. Good-night."
But I did not trust her: she might steal in while I slept: and I turned the key of my door inside for the first time since I was at Chandos.
The next day was a gloomy one. Not as to weather; that was bright enough; but for me. Mr. Chandos was away. Gone out somewhere by rail, very far; and would not be back until night.
"Is he well enough to bear the fatigue, Hickens?" I could not help asking the butler as he stood by me at breakfast.
"Well, Miss, I should say he is not well enough. Hill says it is some pressing business for my lady that he has gone upon; and Mr. Harry is one to go through with any duty, let him be well or ill; ay, though he died for it."
Idling away the morning desultorily, I got through an hour or two. Was this new feeling making me worthless? Half ashamed of myself as the question flashed over me, I took out a German book of study, and settled down to it on a bench amid the thickest trees, not far from the entrance gates, and near the privet walk where I had once met Edwin Barley. While I was reading steadily, a voice began speaking at a little distance, and I recognised it for his.
Edwin Barley's. Did he habitually come to the shady walk? The clump of thick shrubs, intervening, hid me from him, and him from me; for some minutes I could do nothing but give way to my fear; and did not dare to stir hand or foot.
Some one was speaking with him; whether man or woman I could not tell, the voice was so faint. And it seemed that while Mr. Barley must have had his face turned to me, and the wind, setting this way, bore his accents with it, the other person must have faced the opposite way, and the voice was lost.
"You are stupid, woman!" were the first distinct words I heard from him, seemingly spoken in sudden petulance. "Where's the use of your telling me this much, if you can't tell more?"
It was a woman, then. Sure and swiftly came the conviction of her identity to me with a force I could not account for. Lizzy Dene.