Perhaps—I will not affirm it—she threw a little more of her real languor and weariness into her attitude and movements when she made this exciting discovery. She was, in reality, very tired. She had looked so when she left the house; perhaps she had forgotten her great fatigue a little in the course of her walk, but it now came back again with double force, which is not unusual in the most matter of fact circumstances. As her pace grew slower, the footstep behind became slower also, but always followed on. Miss Lance proceeded steadily, choosing the quietest streets, pausing now and then at a shop window to rest. The climax came when she reached a window which had a rail round it, upon which she leaned heavily, every line of her dress expressing, with a faculty which her garments specially possessed, an exhaustion which could scarcely go further. Then she raised her head to look what the place was. It was full of embroideries and needlework, a woman’s shop, where she was sure of sympathy. She went in blindly, as if her very sight were clouded with her fatigue.
“I am very tired,” she said; “I want some silk for embroidery; but that is not my chief object. May I sit down a little? I am so very tired.”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly,” cried the mistress of the shop, rushing round from behind the counter to place a chair for her and offer a glass of water. She sat down so as to be visible from the door, but still with her back to it. The step had stopped, and there was a shadow across the window—the tall shadow of a man looking in. A smile came upon Miss Lance’s face—of gratitude and thanks to the kind people—also perhaps of some internal satisfaction. But she did not act as if she were conscious of anyone waiting for her. She took the glass of water with many acknowledgments; she leant back on the chair murmuring, “Thanks, thanks,” to the exhortations of the shop-woman not to hurry, to take a good rest. She did not hurry at all. Finally, she was so much better as to be able to buy her silks, and, declaring herself quite restored, to go out again into the open air.
She was met by the shadow that had been visible through the window, and which, as she knew very well, was Colonel Kingsward, stiff and embarrassed, yet with great anxiety in his face. “I feared you were ill,” he said, with a little jerk, the words coming in spite of him. “I feared you were fainting.”
“Oh, Colonel Kingsward, you!”
“Yes—I feared you were fainting. It is—nothing, I hope?”
“Nothing but exhaustion,” she said, with a faint smile. “I was very tired, but I have rested and I am a little better now.”
“Will you let me call a cab for you? You don’t seem fit to walk.”
“Oh, no cab, thanks! I would much rather walk—the air and the slow movement does one a little good.”
She was pale, and her voice was rather faint, and every line of her dress, as I have said, was tired—tired to death—and yet not ungracefully tired.