Leigh was standing in front of her, leaning on his stick and gazing intently at her. With a cry of astonishment he let his stick fall and threw up his arms. "Miss Grace! Miss Grace, as I am alive! Miss Grace here! Miss Grace here now!"
He dropped his arms. His cry and manner bereft her of the power of speech. She felt abashed and confounded. She seemed to have treated badly this man who had just delivered her from a serious and humiliating difficulty.
"Pray excuse me," he said, bowing low and raising his hat as he picked up his stick. "The sight of you astonished me out of myself. I thought you were miles and miles away. I thought you were at Eltham House. To what great misfortune does my poor mother owe your absence? You are not--please say you are not ill?"
"I am not ill." It was very awkward that he should speak of his mother's loss, of her abandoning his mother. She had felt a liking in their short acquaintance for the poor helpless old woman. She had come away without saying a word to Mrs. Leigh. True, she had left a note, and as she was quitting the place that morning the note had not been where she had placed it. Perhaps it had merely been blown down or knocked away by the wind or by herself, or by him in the dark. She was conscience-stricken at having deserted Mrs. Leigh, she was bewildered at the inconsistency of his words now, and his visit to that room from which he believed she had fled last night. She had, too, overheard him say to his mother that he would put something right in Eltham for her this day. She had gathered he had had no intention of leaving Eltham until about noon, and it was not nine o'clock yet! He surely did not know she was in that dark room when he made the soliloquy. To suppose he thought she was there would be madness. He knew at that time she had left the house with the intention of not returning and he believed she had not returned. How then could he imagine she was still at Eltham? Why had he left Millway so early? Ah, yes, of course, as far as that went, Mrs. Brown must have discovered her flight on missing the key of the gate from its hook in the little hall of the gate-house. She must have given information and he must have come up by this train, but why? Ah, the whole thing was horribly confused, and dull, and dim, and she heard a buzzing in her ears.
All this went through her mind as quickly as wind through a tree, and like wind through a tree touching and moving the many boughs and branches of thought in her mind simultaneously.
Leigh, upon hearing her say "I am not ill," drew back with a gesture of astonishment and protest, and said, "You were not ill, and yet you fled from us, Miss Grace! Then we must have been so unfortunate as to displease Miss Grace unwittingly. But you are tired, child, and I am inconsiderate to keep you waiting. You are going where?" His voice became suave and gracious. His manner showed to advantage contrasted with his half sly and wholly persistent manner of yesterday.
"I was going home to Grimsby Street."
"Then this is our way. You have no baggage, I presume?"
"No, I left it behind me. I also left a note----"
"Hah! Here we are. Now Miss Grace, you must be far too tired and put out by your early journey and this most unpleasant experience on the platform to be allowed by me to speak a word of explanation. Pray step in. I shall call to enquire how you are later in the day."