I glanced at her, and took in every detail of her countenance and dress. She was no longer in shabby black, but in a pretty costume of dove-grey cashmere, with silken trimmings of a somewhat darker shade; she looked daintily bewitching, supple and slim, grey lending relief to the delicate roundness, the gentle curves of a figure in which early womanhood was blooming with all its sweet and adorable charm. Her fair hair, streaked here and there with gold, was covered with a hat that suited her exquisitely, whether the eye sought harmony of colour or unity of lines. She wore no veil, and thus I could freely feast my eyes upon her beauty.
“I really don’t understand you,” I exclaimed, after a pause. “You do not trouble me, for until I saw you by chance passing into the street we were entire strangers.”
“No benefit can be obtained by discussing the matter,” she answered blankly. “Why were you watching in Harpur Street if not to witness my despair?”
“I had a motive in watching,” I answered.
“Of course you had. You cannot deny that. My father has already spoken of you, and told me everything.”
“And he is still triumphant?” I queried, recollecting his expression of satisfaction on seeing the fatal sign.
She was silent, her lips set closely, her fair face turned towards the open expanse of grey sea.
“Am I not right in suggesting that your enemy is a person named Selby, and that he—”
“Who told you that?” she cried. “How did you know?”
“By my own observations,” I replied, as calmly as I could, yet secretly gratified that she should have thus betrayed the truth.