"Perhaps it was," I answered. Some impulse, not unnatural, led me to say nothing about what I had seen. I was not quite sure that my eyes had not deceived me. I feared his ridicule, too, though he was not very prone to ridicule. And above all I shrank from explaining the medley of superstitious fear, distrust, and abhorrence in which I held the creature who had shown so strange a knowledge of my life.
We were already near Holborn, and reaching without further adventure a modest inn near the Bars, we retired to a room we had engaged, and lay down with none of the gallant hopes which had last night formed the subject of our talk. Yet we slept well, for depression goes better with sleep than does the tumult of anticipation; and I was up early, and down in the yard looking to the horses before London was well awake. As I entered the stable a man lying curled up in the straw rolled lazily over and, shading his eyes, glanced up. Apparently he recognized me, for he got slowly to his feet. "Morning!" he said gruffly.
I stood staring at him, wondering if I had made a mistake.
"What are you doing here, my man?" I said sharply, when I had made certain I knew him, and that he was really the surly ostler from the Gatehouse tavern at Highgate. "Why did you come here? Why have you followed us?"
"Come about your business," he answered. "To give you that."
I took the note he held out to me. "From whom?" I said. "Who sent it by you?"
"Cannot tell," he replied, shaking his head.
"Cannot, or will not?" I retorted.
"Both," he said doggedly. "But there, if you want to know what sort of a kernel is in a nut, you don't shake the tree, master--you crack the nut."
I looked at the note he had given me. It was but a slip of paper folded thrice. The sender had not addressed, or sealed, or fastened it in anyway; had taken no care either to insure its reaching its destination or to prevent prying eyes seeing the contents. If one of our associates had sent it, he had been guilty of the grossest carelessness. "You are sure it is for me?" I said.