Dusk darkened into night, and the street-lamps commenced to glimmer as we strolled on and on westward, through that maze of highly respectable streets and squares which constitute Bayswater, until we suddenly found ourselves in the boarding-house region of Powis Square. Then, at her suggestion, we turned and retraced our steps to the Edgware Road, proceeding towards the Park. The cloud that had earlier fallen upon her seemed now removed, and she grew brighter.
Her father, she told me, had returned to London, and was at home; but she expected they would both leave again tomorrow for the North.
“To Scotland?” I suggested with some anxiety.
“Oh, I really don’t know,” was her reply. “My father is most erratic in his movements. I only know that he goes to the North, and that I go with him.”
“But tell me,” I asked very earnestly, “has your father ever mentioned his intention of going to Galloway?”
She looked up at me in some surprise.
“Yes, he did so the other day, while we were at Saxlingham,” she responded. “But why do you wish to know?”
“Because I have a reason—a very strong one,” I answered. “He goes with friends, doesn’t he?”
“With me—I know of no one else who is going. We may be going to Castle-Douglas; but of course I am quite in the dark. Very often I have set out from Charing Cross with him and have not known our destination until we have been in Paris or Brussels. Again, we have, on several occasions, been living quietly at home in Grosvenor Street when all our friends have believed us to be on the other side of the equator. It is quite exciting, I assure you, to live in secret at home, see nobody, and only go out at night, and then always in fear of being recognised,” she added.
“But why does your father do these things; he surely has some motive?”