In one of these narrow lanes, with a high wall upon the one side and a thorn-hedge upon the other, John Gore met the last soul on earth he expected to meet at such a moment—Barbara Purcell, alone, not even followed by a servant. However dreamily John Gore’s thoughts may have lingered amid the stately walks of my lord’s house at Bushy, he was surprised to see her before him in the flesh. She was dressed quietly, with a cloak over her shoulders, and the hood turned forward to cover her hair, so that she looked more like a shopkeeper’s daughter than a young madam from the atmosphere of St. James’s.
There was no turning back for either of them in that narrow lane, even if either had desired to escape a meeting. John Gore saw her flush momentarily, with a glitter of something in the eyes wonderfully like anger. How symbolical that hedged-in pathway seemed to her—a pathway where fate could not be eluded, and where death followed her like a shadow!
“I never thought to see you here!”
She looked at him darkly with her sombre eyes—eyes that made him think of watchfulness and waiting.
“Sometimes I come here and walk in the lanes. They are quiet, and one is not stared at.”
“You should not walk here, though, when it is getting dusk.”
“Oh, I am not afraid.”
The unfeigned earnestness of the man betrayed a depth beyond the shallows of mere words.
“Others—may be afraid for you. These paths that seem so sweet and green are often the night tracks of the vermin of the streets.”
Their eyes met and appeared to exchange a challenge.