I drew nearer, and had placed my hand upon the latch when our eyes met again.
No. I was not mistaken! She was the white-faced girl I had seen pass along Harpur Street that night, the woman from whose lips had come that exclamation of blank despair, the woman to whom the sign of the bear was the sign of death.
For a few seconds I believed that my constant thoughts of her had caused my vision to play some sorry trick; but, fumbling clumsily with the gate while she stood aside modestly to allow me to pass, I again reassured myself that it was actually Lord Glenelg’s daughter.
Why had she followed me there? That was the first question that arose to my mind, for all these strange occurrences connected with The Closed Book had aroused my suspicion.
She glanced at me once, then dropped her eyes, and held the collie by his collar for want of something else to do. Her face was still pale and slightly drawn, and her eyes betrayed a deep, all-consuming anxiety; but her countenance was, I saw, really more beautiful than it had appeared to me on that wet night in the dismal London streets.
All these details I took in at a single glance. The all-important question was whether it were wisdom to speak to her?
We were strangers. Perhaps she had not noticed me on that night in London—in all probability she had not. Yet, if she were unaware of my existence, why should she follow me to Norfolk?
To speak might not be a very diplomatic move; but I suddenly recollected her despair at seeing the mysterious sign of the bear, and her father’s apparent disregard of her future. Such being the case, ought we not to be acquainted?
This argument decided me, and with some hesitation I raised my hat after I had passed through the gate to where she stood, and in faltering tones begged to be allowed to introduce myself.
She frowned with displeasure, and next moment I saw I had made a false move. The golf-playing girl of today, with red coat and masculine manners, will treat a stranger just as a man may treat one. Modesty is, I fear, a virtue that in the modern girl is growing annually rarer, because nowadays if a girl blushes at her introduction to a stranger she is at once pronounced a “gawk,” even by her own mother.