“Pray pardon me; you seem to be searching for something. Can I help you in any way or give you any information?”
She looked at me a little shyly and, as I thought, with slight distrust, but she answered civilly enough, though rather stiffly:
“Thank you, but I am afraid you can’t help me. I am not in need of any assistance.”
This, under ordinary circumstances, would have brought the interview to an abrupt end. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and as she made as if to pass me I ventured to persist.
“Please,” I urged, “don’t think me impertinent, but would you mind telling me what you are looking for? I have a reason for asking, and it isn’t curiosity.”
She reflected for a few moments before replying, and I feared that she was about to administer another snub. Then, without looking at me, she replied:
“I am looking for my father” (and at these words my heart sank). “He did not come home last night. He left Hornsey to come home, and he would ordinarily have come by the path through the wood. He always came that way from Hornsey. So I am looking through the wood in case he missed his way, or was taken ill, or⸺”
Here the poor girl suddenly broke off, and, letting her dignity go, burst into tears. I huskily murmured a few indistinct words of condolence, but, in truth, I was little less affected than she was. It was a terrible position, but there was no escape from it. The corpse that I had just seen was almost certainly her father’s corpse. At any rate, the question whether it was or not had to be settled now, and settled by me—and her. That was quite clear; but yet I could not screw my courage up to the point of telling her. While I was hesitating, however, she forced the position by a direct question.
“You said just now that you had a reason for asking what I was searching for. Would it be⸺?” She paused and looked at me inquiringly as she wiped her eyes.
I made a last, frantic search for some means of breaking the horrid news to her. Of course there was none. Eventually I stammered: