CHAPTER LIII.—PANSY.
Pansy and her grandfather, Eben Morris, were the persons whose arrival at the Masons’ Arms had interrupted Tuppit and his brother. Even had Wrentham’s attention been disengaged, the light in the room was too dim for him to recognise the girl before he was dragged out to the balcony.
Pansy had left home in a woeful state of mental perplexity; ashamed of her conduct to Caleb, anxious to hide from every one and to suppress in herself the silly fancies which had induced it. On alighting from the train at Liverpool Street, she was as much frightened by suddenly encountering Coutts Hadleigh as if he had been the Evil One himself.
‘Whither away, my forest nymph?’ he said with a smile in which there was nothing more than the careless freedom he would have taken with any pretty maid of the servant rank. ‘What brings you to Babylon?’
‘I am going to visit a sick friend,’ she answered, turning away her face.
‘And when will you be back? We cannot afford to lose you from Ringsford.’
‘I do not know—but I am in a hurry, sir;’ and she attempted to pass.
‘Stop a minute; you don’t know your way about the city. Where does your friend live?’
‘I know the way quite well, thank you, sir,’ she replied nervously, without giving the address.
‘Oh, that’s all right, then. I thought I might save you some time and trouble by putting you on the right track.’