“In forty minits, if she’s not late; but she’s shure to be in time if I’m not here, bad cess to her!”
I sat down in the cheerless waiting-room, disgusted with Sir Geoffry Didcote, disgusted with myself, boiling with anger, and writhing with mortification, till the recollection of my fair travelling companion descended like oil upon the troubled waters of my mind, and the desire to discover who she might be became overwhelming. Fool that I was not to have gained even a solitary clue! She might be travelling to Belfast en route for Scotland, or she might have alighted at the next station. The last thought induced me to question the porter.
“Did you see a handsome lady in weeds in the train that I travelled by?” I asked.
“Is it a widdy woman ye mane?”
“Yes.”
“Young?”
“Yes—very.”
“Purty?”
“Beautiful!” I exclaimed.
Here he winked facetiously. “I seen her. Me an’ her is acquainted.”