The church clocks were sounding the midnight hour as Loveday made her way through the dark streets to her hotel outside the town. As she passed under the railway arch that ended in the open country road, the echo of not very distant footsteps caught her ear. When she stopped they stopped, when she went on they went on, and she knew that once more she was being followed and watched, although the darkness of the arch prevented her seeing even the shadow of the man who was thus dogging her steps.
The next morning broke keen and frosty. Loveday studied her map and her country-house index over a seven o’clock breakfast, and then set off for a brisk walk along the country road. No doubt in London the streets were walled in and roofed with yellow fog; here, however, bright sunshine played in and out of the bare tree-boughs and leafless hedges on to a thousand frost spangles, turning the prosaic macadamized road into a gangway fit for Queen Titania herself and her fairy train.
Loveday turned her back on the town and set herself to follow the road as it wound away over the hill in the direction of a village called Northfield. Early as she was, she was not to have that road to herself. A team of strong horses trudged by on their way to their work in the fuller’s-earth pits. A young fellow on a bicycle flashed past at a tremendous pace, considering the upward slant of the road. He looked hard at her as he passed, then slackened pace, dismounted, and awaited her coming on the brow of the hill.
“Good morning, Miss Brooke,” he said, lifting his cap as she came alongside of him. “May I have five minutes’ talk with you?”
The young man who thus accosted her had not the appearance of a gentleman. He was a handsome, bright-faced young fellow of about two-and-twenty, and was dressed in ordinary cyclists’ dress; his cap was pushed back from his brow over thick, curly, fair hair, and Loveday, as she looked at him, could not repress the thought how well he would look at the head of a troop of cavalry, giving the order to charge the enemy.
He led his machine to the side of the footpath.
“You have the advantage of me,” said Loveday; “I haven’t the remotest notion who you are.”
“No,” he said; “although I know you, you cannot possibly know me. I am a north country man, and I was present, about a month ago, at the trial of old Mr. Craven, of Troyte’s Hill—in fact, I acted as reporter for one of the local papers. I watched your face so closely as you gave your evidence that I should know it anywhere, among a thousand.”
“And your name is—?”
“George White, of Grenfell. My father is part proprietor of one of the Newcastle papers. I am a bit of a literary man myself, and sometimes figure as a reporter, sometimes as leader-writer, to that paper.” Here he gave a glance towards his side pocket, from which protruded a small volume of Tennyson’s poems.
The facts he had stated did not seem to invite comment, and Loveday ejaculated merely:
“Indeed!”
The young man went back to the subject that was evidently filling his thoughts. “I have special reasons for being glad to have met you this morning, Miss Brooke,” he want on, making his footsteps keep pace with hers. “I am in great trouble, and I believe you are the only person in the whole world who can help me out of that trouble.”
“I am rather doubtful as to my power of helping anyone out of trouble,” said Loveday; “so far as my experience goes, our troubles are as much a part of ourselves as our skins are of our bodies.”
“Ah, but not such trouble as mine,” said White eagerly. He broke off for a moment, then, with a sudden rush of words, told her what that trouble was. For the past year he had been engaged to be married to a young girl, who, until quite recently had been fulfilling the duties of a nursery governess in a large house in the neighbourhood of Redhill.
“Will you kindly give me the name of that house?” interrupted Loveday.
“Certainly; Wootton Hall, the place is called, and Annie Lee is my sweetheart’s name. I don’t care who knows it!” He threw his head back as he said this, as if he would be delighted to announce the fact to the whole world. “Annie’s mother,” he went on, “died when she was a baby, and we both thought her father was dead also, when suddenly, about a fortnight ago, it came to her knowledge that instead of being dead, he was serving his time at Portland for some offence committed years ago.”
“Do you know how this came to Annie’s knowledge?”
“Not the least in the world; I only know that I suddenly got a letter from her announcing the fact, and at the same time, breaking off her engagement with me. I tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and wrote back saying I would not allow the engagement to be broken off, but would marry her tomorrow if she would have me. To this letter she did not reply; there came instead a few lines from Mrs. Copeland, the lady at Wootton Hall, saying that Annie had thrown up her engagement and joined some Sisterhood, and that she, Mrs. Copeland, had pledged her word to Annie to reveal to no one the name and whereabouts of that Sisterhood.”
“And I suppose you imagine I am able to do what Mrs. Copeland is pledged not to do?”
“That’s just it, Miss Brooke,” cried the young man enthusiastically. “You do such wonderful things; everyone knows you do. It seems as if, when anything is
