Gard, who had been anxiously watching them from amidships, approached.
"Now, Beth, what do you mean?" said the Count.
"I mean that I was out sitting on a rail in the church-fields last night with Alfred Cayley Pounce and Dicksie Richardson talking, and this man came and listened; and then when I left them, he met me on the path beside the church, and spoke impudently to me, and would not let me pass. I know what you thought," she broke out, turning upon Gard. "You thought I was doing something that I was ashamed of, and you'd find it out, and have me in your power. But I'll have you know that I do nothing I'm ashamed of—nothing I should be ashamed to tell your master about, so you may save yourself the trouble of spying upon me, Black Gard, as they well call you."
Gard was about to say something, but Count Gustav stopped him peremptorily. "You can go," he said. "I'll hear what you have to say later."
Then he sat down beside Beth, and talked to her long and earnestly. He advised her to give up her rambles with Alfred and Dicksie; but she assured him that that was impossible.
"Who else have I?" she asked pathetically. "And what am I to do with my days if they never come into them again?"
"You ought to have been sent to school, Beth, long ago, and I told your mother so," Count Gustav answered, frowning. "And, by Jove, I'll tell her again," he thought, "before it's too late."
The encounter with Gard added excitement to the charm of Beth's next meeting with the boys. It made them all feel rather important. They discussed it incessantly, speculating as to what the man's object could have been. Alfred said vulgar curiosity; but Beth suspected that there was more than that in the manœuvre; and when Dicksie suggested acutely that Gard had intended to blackmail them, she and Alfred both exclaimed that that was it!
They had gone about together all this time in the most open way; now they began to talk about caution and concealment, like the persecuted lovers of old romance, who had powerful enemies, and were obliged to manage their meetings so that they should not be suspected. They decided not to speak to each other in public, and, consequently, when they met in the street, they passed with such an elaborate parade of ignoring each other, and yet with such evident enjoyment of the position, that people began to wonder what on earth they were up to. Disguises would have delighted them; but the fashions of the day did not lend themselves much to disguise, unfortunately. There were no masks, no sombreros, no cloaks; and all they could think of was false whiskers for Alfred; but when he tried them, they altered him so effectually that Dicksie said he could not bear him, and Beth would not kiss him.
One evening after dinner, when Mrs. Caldwell was reading aloud to Beth and Bernadine, there came a thundering knock at the front door, which startled them all. The weather had been bad all day, and now the shutters were closed, the rain beat against them with a chilly, depressing effect, inexpressibly dreary. Instead of attending to the reading, Beth had been listening to the footsteps of people passing in the street, in the forlorn hope that among them she might distinguish Alfred's. When the knock came they thought it was a runaway, but Harriet opened the door all the same, and presently returned, smiling archly, and holding aloft a beautiful bouquet.