I seemed to have lost pride in myself, so that it became difficult to keep up much hope. Perhaps it might be possible to get the locket safely into Jacintha's hands without seeing her, especially if there happened to be a lodge at the entrance to Colebrook Park, when I might leave the trinket with the lodge-keeper.
With the object of making up my mind, I lay down on the wide border of grass on one side of the road, thankful for the shelter of the hedge. It was about half-past twelve, and several carriages passed as I lay there, as well as a few bicyclists. But now the straight, wide road was clear; no one was in sight, either to the right or to the left, until, from a gate a hundred yards away, in the direction of the town, a girl on a bicycle came forth, and I knew at once that she must be Jacintha.
She wore a wide-brimmed, white straw hat, and a white cotton frock, and was sitting very upright as she turned and coasted on her free-wheel machine down the slight hill towards me. For an instant I thought of turning away my face, so that, even if she remembered it, she should not recognise me; but she looked so bright and pleasant an object in the middle of the sunny road that, on the impulse of the moment, I rose to my feet, crossed the margin of grass, and lifted the cloth cap which had been given to me before I reached Polehampton.
Jacintha was off her machine at once. 'Why,' she cried, 'you are the boy who ran away!'
'My name is Everard, you know,' I answered.
'But I thought you said you were going to London?' she suggested.
'So I am.'
'It is not the nearest way from where you were to come through Hazleton,' said Jacintha.
'You see,' I explained, thrusting my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, 'I came to bring back your locket,' and I held it out towards her in the palm of my right hand.
'My locket?' she said, gazing at it while she held the handle of her bicycle.