“Yes, thanks to you,” she replied, with a sigh of relief. Then looking anxiously at the clock, she added, “It’s late, therefore I must be going. I can get there in a cab, I suppose?”
“Certainly,” I answered; “and if you’ll wait a moment while I get a thick coat I’ll see you safely there—if I may be allowed.”
“No,” she said, putting up her little hand as if to arrest me, “I couldn’t think of taking you out all that way at this hour.”
I laughed, for I was used to late hours at the club, and had on many a morning crossed Leicester Square on my way home when the sun was shining.
So disregarding her, I went into my room, exchanged my light overcoat for a heavier one, placed a silk muffler around my neck, and having fortified myself with a whiskey and soda, we both went out, and entering a cab started forth on our long drive up to Hampstead.
The cabman was ignorant of Ellerdale Road, but when I directed him to Fitzjohn’s Avenue he at once asserted that he would quickly find it.
“I hope we may meet again. We must!” I exclaimed, when at last we grew near our journey’s end. “This is certainly a very strange meeting, but if at any time I can render you another service, command me.”
“You are extremely good,” she answered, turning to me after looking out fixedly upon the dark, deserted street, for rain was falling, and it was muddy and cheerless. “We had, however, better not meet again.”
“Why?” I inquired. Her beauty had cast a spell about me, and I was capable of any foolishness.
“Because it is unnecessary,” she replied, with a strange vagueness, yet without hesitation.