After a three-mile trudge from St. Albans Aristide, following directions, found himself on a high road running through the middle of a straggy common decked here and there with great elms splendid in autumn bravery, and populated chiefly by geese, who when he halted in some perplexity—for on each side, beyond the green, were indications of a human settlement—advanced in waddling flocks towards him and signified their disapproval of his presence. A Sundayfied youth in a rainbow tie rode past on a bicycle. Aristide took off his hat. The youth nearly fell off the bicycle, but British doggedness saved him from disaster.
“Beverly Stoke? Will you have the courtesy——”
“Here,” bawled the youth, with a circular twist of his head, and, eager to escape from a madman, he rode on furiously.
Aristide looked to left and right at the little houses beyond the green—some white and thatched and dilapidated, others horridly new and perky—but all poor and insignificant. As his eyes became accustomed to the scene they were aware of human forms dotted sparsely about the common. He struck across and accosted one, an elderly woman with a prayer-book. “Miss Honeywood? A lady from London?”
“That house over there—the third beyond the poplar.”
“And little Jean—a beautiful child about four years old?”
“That I don’t know, sir. I live at Wilmer’s End, a good half mile from here.”
Aristide made for the third house past the poplar. First there was a plank bridge across a grass-grown ditch; then a tiny patch of garden; then a humble whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, stood Miss Anne.
She regarded him for a moment in a bewildered way, then, recognizing him, drew back into the stone flagged passage with a sharp cry.