‘Bad neighbourhood for a lady to be alone,’ interrupted Felix, with a reproachful glance at Seaton.—‘I beg your pardon. Go on, please.’
‘I had missed my husband at Waterloo Station, and I was hurrying home as quickly as I could’——
‘Why did you not take a cab?’ exclaimed Felix with some asperity. Then seeing Eleanor colour, he said hastily: ‘What a dolt I am! I—I am very sorry. Please, go on.’
‘As I was saying,’ continued Eleanor, ‘just as I was crossing the bridge, I saw a woman close by me climb on to one of the buttresses. I don’t remember much about it, for it was over in less than a minute, and seems like a dream now; but it was my old nurse, or rather companion, Margaret Boulton, strange as it seems. Now, you know quite as much as I can tell you.’
Felix mused for a time over this strange history. He could not shake off the feeling that it was more than a mere coincidence. ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I feel something will come of this.’
‘I hope so,’ answered Eleanor with a little sigh. ‘Things certainly look a little better now than they did; but we need some permanent benefit sadly.’
‘I thought some day had come, mamma,’ piped little Nelly from her nest on the hearthrug.
‘Little pitchers have long ears,’ said the novelist. ‘Come and sit on poor old Uncle Jasper’s knee, Nelly, and give him a kiss.’
‘Yes, I will, Uncle Jasper; but I’m not a little pitcher, and I’ve not dot long ears.—Mamma, are my ears long?’
‘No, darling,’ replied her mother with a smile. ‘Uncle Felix was not speaking of you.’