As we rose and turned towards the city, a circumstance, slight in itself, occurred, which afterwards caused me not a little perturbation and surprise, and which considerably enhanced the mystery surrounding the fair Russian.
We were passing a buttress of the fort when my attention was arrested by what appeared to be a man standing bolt upright in the shadow.
I was too engrossed with thoughts of our tête-à-tête to allow the discovery of an eavesdropper—probably only a peasant—to cause me any alarm, but, seeing my eyes upon him, for I had halted to make sure, the figure suddenly drew from the shadow, and, with its face averted from the moonlight, walked rapidly away.
Vera, uttering an exclamation of surprise or alarm,—which it was I could not tell—seized my arm with a convulsive energy that caused me no small pleasure at the feeling of dependence it implied, and drew a deep breath.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“No, no; not at all,” she quickly replied. “He might have heard us; but never mind.”
I endeavoured to learn the cause of her alarm thinking that so much agitation could not be created by such a trivial circumstance; but whether my knowledge of feminine nature was imperfect, or whether she knew who the listener was, and concealed his identity, I could not learn, her answers being of the most evasive kind.
It was plain that the fact of our being discovered together had caused her the greatest consternation, and I was considerably puzzled to assign to this a reason.
I did not broach the subject again, however, but walked straight to the hotel, where we bade each other buona notte.
We met daily, and I, most prosaic of bachelors, found myself thinking of her every moment.