“You have forgotten your broom,” she said, with a wavering smile trembling on her lips.
“I had forgotten more than that,” he said, “I had forgotten my mission.”
“Your mission?”
“Yes; my false pretences do not stop at climbing walls. I am really a traitorous messenger; for the device by which I came here was arranged by another, who wished me to take a letter to you. He is in Eastbourne, and had written to you, but his letter was returned to him. He has written another—here it is.”
“Of whom are you speaking?”
“Mr. Barnard Hope.”
“Oh!”
She took the letter. Marsten lifted his broom and went away. He wanted to leave the place and get back to London; but the gardener had cautioned him not to return until the sweeping was finished, while Barney himself impressed upon him the necessity of allowing no suspicion to arise, as it might be needful to despatch another messenger on a similar errand. So he kept on sweeping the débris into little heaps by the side of the path. The schoolgirls disappeared into the house by twos and threes, until he found himself once more alone, and yet he did not see Edna come from the summer-house. He moved nearer and nearer with his work to the place where they had met, hoping to catch a parting glimpse of her as she walked towards the house. At last she came out; but instead of taking the direct path to the house she came towards him, with the thin volume she had been reading in her hand. There was a slight increase of the usual colour in her cheeks, but with that exception she had succeeded in suppressing all trace of her emotion. She looked at him with what seemed, at first, all her former straightforwardness; but, as he met her gaze, he saw it was not quite the same: a misty shadow of difference veiled her honest eyes, so like her father’s, but so much kindlier.
“I have brought you this book,” she said, holding it out to him, “and I want you to keep it. It is the story of a messenger who was true to the trust of the one who sent him, and yet who failed.”
“But you have not read the book yourself?” he replied, taking the volume, nevertheless.