A LONELY WOMAN
If I had had any intention of avoiding Mrs. Samway, that intention
must inevitably have been frustrated, for her recognition was as
instantaneous as my own. Almost as I turned the corner, she looked up
and saw me; and a few moments later, she rose and advanced in my
direction, so that, to an onlooker it would have appeared as if we had
met by appointment. There was obviously nothing for it but to look as
pleased as I could manage at such short notice; which I did, shaking
her hand with hypocritical warmth.
“And I suppose, Dr. Jardine,” said she, “you are thinking what a very
odd coincidence it is that we should happen to meet here?”
“Oh, I don’t know that it is so very odd. I live about here and I
understood you to say that you often come up to the Heath. At any
rate, our last meeting was a good deal more odd.”
“Yes, indeed. But the truth is that this is not a coincidence at all.
I may as well confess that I came here deliberately with the intention
of waylaying you.”
This very frank statement took me aback considerably; so much so that
I could think of no appropriate remark beyond mumbling something to
the effect that “it was very flattering of her.”
“I have been trying,” she continued, “to get a few words with you for
some time past; but, although I have lurked in your line of march in
the most shameless manner, I have always managed to miss you. I
thought, from what you told me, that you passed Robinson’s shop on
your way to the hospital.”
“So I do,” I replied mendaciously; for I could hardly tell her that I
had lately taken to shooting up by-streets with the express purpose of
avoiding that particular stretch of pavement.
“It’s rather curious that I never happened to meet you there. However,
I didn’t, so, to-day, I determined to take the bull by the horns and
catch you here.”
This last statement, like the former ones, gave me abundant matter for
reflection. How the deuce had she managed to “catch me here”? I
supposed that she had seen Sylvia and me in the Hampstead Road and had
guessed that we were coming on to this neighbourhood. That was a case
of feminine intuition; which, like the bone-setter’s skill, is a
wonderful thing--when it comes off (and when it doesn’t one isn’t
expected to notice the fact). Then she had gone on ahead--still
guessing at our final destination--and kept us in sight while keeping
out of view herself. It was not so very easy to understand and not at
all comfortable to think of, for there was a disagreeable suggestion
that she had somehow ascertained Sylvia’s place of abode beforehand.
And yet--well, the whole affair was rather mysterious.
“You don’t ask why it was that I wanted to waylay you,” she said, at
length, as I made no comment on her last statement.
“There is an old saying,” I replied, “that one shouldn’t look a
gift-horse in the mouth.”
“That is very diplomatic,” she retorted with a laugh. “But I daresay
your knowledge of women makes the question unnecessary.”
“My knowledge of women,” said I, “might be put into a nutshell and
still leave plenty of room for the nut and a good, fat maggot
besides.”
“Then I must beware of you. The man who professes to know nothing of
women is the most deep and dangerous class of person. But there is one
item of knowledge that you seem to have acquired. You seem to know
that women like to have pretty things said to them.”
“If you call that knowledge,” said I, “you must apply the same name to
the mere blind impulse that leads a spider to spin a nice, symmetrical
web.”
She laughed softly and looked up at me with an expression of amused
reflection. “I am thinking,” she said, “what a very fine symmetrical
web you would spin if you were a spider.”
“Possibly,” I replied. “But it looks as if the rôle of bluebottle
were the one that is being marked out for me.”
“Oh! Not a bluebottle, Dr. Jardine. It doesn’t suit you at all. If you
must make a comparison, why not say a Goliath beetle, and have
something really dignified--and not so very inappropriate?”
“Well, then, a Goliath beetle, if you prefer it; not that he would
look very dignified, kicking his heels in the elegant web of the
superlatively elegant feminine spider.”
“Oh, but that isn’t pretty of you at all, Dr. Jardine. In fact it is
quite horrid; and unfair, too; because you are trying to get the
information without asking a direct question.”
“What question am I supposed to ask?”
“You needn’t ask any. I will take pity on your masculine pride and
tell you why I have been lying in wait for you, although I daresay you
have guessed. The truth is, I am simply devoured by curiosity.”
“Concerning what?”
“Now, how can you ask? Just think! One day I meet you in the Hampstead
Road, going about your ordinary business, apparently a fixture, at
least for months. A few days later, a hundred miles from London, I
feel myself suddenly seized from behind; I turn round and there are
you with tragedy and adventure written large all over you.”
“I thought the tragedy was rather on your side; and so did the ancient
mariner with the black bottle and the tea cup. But--”
“I don’t wish to discuss the views of that well-meaning old brute. I
want an explanation. I want to know how you came to be in Folkestone
and in that extraordinary condition. I am sure something strange must
have happened to you.”
“Why? Haven’t I as much right to be in Folkestone as you have?”
“That is mere evasion. When I see a man who is usually rather
carefully and very neatly dressed, walking in the streets of a seaport
town without hat or a stick and with a collar that looks as if it had
been used to clean out a saucepan, and great stains on his clothes, I
am justified in inferring that something unusual has happened to him.”
“I didn’t think you had noticed my negligé get-up.”
“At the time I did not. I was very upset and agitated, I had just had
a lot of worry and was compelled to cross to France at a moment’s
notice; and then there was that horrible horse, and the sudden way
that you seized me and then got knocked down; and the--”
“The ancient mariner.”
“Yes, the ancient mariner; and the knowledge that I was behaving like
an idiot and couldn’t help it--though you were so nice and kind to me.
So you see, I was hardly conscious of what was happening at the time.
But afterwards, when I had recovered my wits a little, I recalled the
astonishing figure that you made, and I have been wondering ever since
what had happened to you. I assure you, Dr. Jardine, you looked as if
you might have swum to Folkestone.”
“Did I, by Jove!” I exclaimed with a laugh. “Well, appearances weren’t
so very deceptive. The fact is that I had swum part of the way.”
She looked at me incredulously. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean that you are now looking on a modern and strictly up-to-date
edition of Sinbad the Sailor.”
“That isn’t very explanatory. But I suppose it isn’t meant to be. It
is just a preliminary stimulant to whet my appetite for marvels, and a
most unnecessary one, I can assure you, for I am absolutely agape with
curiosity. Do go on. Tell me exactly what had happened to you.”
Now the truth is that I had already said rather more than was strictly
discreet and would gladly have drawn in my horns. But I had evidently
let myself in for some sort of plausible explanation, and a lack of
that enviable faculty that enables its possessor to tell a really
convincing and workmanlike lie, condemned me to a mere unimaginative
adherence to the bald facts, though I did make one slight and
amateurish effort at prevarication.
“You want a detailed log of Sinbad’s voyages, do you?” said I. “Then
you shall have it. We will begin at the beginning. The port of
departure was the Embankment somewhere near Cleopatra’s Needle. I was
leaning over the parapet, staring down at the water like a fool, when
some practical joker came along, and, apparently thinking it would be
rather funny to give me a fright, suddenly lifted me off my feet. But
my jocose friend hadn’t allowed for the top-heaviness of a person of
my height, and, before you could say ‘knife,’ I had slipped from his
hold and taken a most stylish header into the water. Fortunately for
me, a barge happened at the moment to be towing past, and, when I had
managed to haul myself on board, I fell into the arms of a marine
species of Good Samaritan, who, not having a supply of the orthodox
oil and wine, proceeded to fill me up with hot gin and water, which is
distinctly preferable for internal application. Then the Samaritan
aforesaid clothed me in gorgeous marine raiment and stowed me in a
cupboard to sleep off the oil and wine, which I did after some sixteen
hours, and then awoke to find our good ship on the broad bosom of the
ocean. And so--not to weary you with the incidents of the voyage--I
came to Folkestone, where I found a beautiful lady endeavouring, very
unsuccessfully, to hypnotize a run-away horse; and so to the adventure
of the tarred nets and the ancient mariner with the black bottle.”
Mrs. Samway smiled a little consciously as I mentioned the last
incidents, but the smile quickly faded and left a deeply thoughtful
expression on her face.
“You take it all very calmly,” said she, “but it seems to me to have
been a rather terrible experience. You really had a very narrow escape
from death.”
“Yes; quite near enough. I’m far from wanting any more from the same
tap.”
“And I don’t quite see why you assume that it was a mere clumsy joke
that sent you into the river by accident.”
“Why, what else could it have been?”
“It looks more like a deliberate attempt to drown you. Perhaps you
have some enemy who might want to make away with you.”
“I haven’t. There isn’t a soul in the world who owes me the slightest
grudge.”
“That seems rather a bold thing to say, but I suppose you know. Still,
I should think you ought to bear this strange affair in mind, and be a
little careful when you go out at night; to avoid the riverside, for
instance. Have you--did you give any information to the police about
this accident, as you call it?”
“Good Lord! No! What would have been the use?”
“I thought you might have given them some description of the man who
pushed you over.”
“But I never saw him. I don’t even know for certain that it was a man.
It might have been a woman for all that I can tell.”
Mrs. Samway looked up at me with that strangely penetrating expression
that I had seen before in those singular, pale eyes of hers.
“You don’t mean that?” she said. “You don’t really think that it could
have been a woman?”
“I don’t think very much about it; but as I never saw the person who
did me the honour of hoisting me overboard, I am clearly not in a
position to depose as to the sex of that person. But if it was a
woman, she must have been an uncommonly strong one.”
Mrs. Samway continued to look at me questioningly.
“I thought you seemed to hint at a suspicion that it actually was a
woman. You would surely be able to tell.”
“I suppose I should if there were time to think about the matter; but,
you see, before I was fairly aware that anyone had hold of me, I was
sticking my head into the mud at the bottom of the river, which is a
process that does not tend very much to clarify one’s thoughts.”
“No, I suppose not,” she agreed. “But it is a most mysterious and
dreadful affair. I can’t think how you can take it so calmly. You
don’t seem to be in the least concerned by the fact that you have been
within a hairs-breadth of being murdered. What do your friends think
about it?”
“Well, you see, Mrs. Samway,” I replied evasively, “one doesn’t talk
much about incidents of this kind. It doesn’t sound very credible, and
one doesn’t want to gain a reputation as a sort of modern Munchausen.
I shouldn’t have told you but that you were already partly in the
secret and that you cross-examined me in such a determined fashion.”
“But,” she exclaimed, “do you mean to tell me that you have said
nothing to anyone about this extraordinary adventure of yours?”
“No, I don’t say that. Of course, I had to give some sort of
explanation to my landlady, for instance, but I didn’t tell her all
that I have told you; and I would rather, if you don’t mind, that you
didn’t mention the affair to anyone. I should hate to be suspected of
romancing.”
“You shan’t be through anything that I may say,” she replied, “though
I should hardly think that anyone who knew you would be likely to
suspect you of inventing imaginary adventures.”
For some minutes after this we walked on without speaking, and, from
time to time, I stole a glance at my companion. And, once again, I
found myself impressed by something distinctive and unusual in her
appearance. Her unquestionable beauty was not like that of most pretty
women, localized and unequal, having features of striking
attractiveness set in an indifferent or even defective matrix. It was
diffused and all pervading, the product of sheer physical excellence.
With most women one feels that the more attractive wares are
judiciously pushed to the front of the window while a discreet
reticence is maintained respecting the unpresentable residue. Not so
with Mrs. Samway. Her small, shapely head, her symmetrical face, her
fine supple figure, and her easy movements, all spoke of a splendid
physique. She was not merely a pretty woman, she was that infinitely
rarer creature, a physically perfect human being; comely with the
comeliness of faultless proportion, graceful with the grace of
symmetry and strength.
Suddenly she looked up at me with just a hint of shyness and a little
heightening of the colour in her cheek.
“Are you going to tell me again, Dr. Jardine, that a cat may look at a
king? Or was it that a king may look at a cat?”
“Whichever you please,” I replied. “We will put them on a footing of
equality, excepting that the king might have the better claim if the
cat happened to be an exceptionally good-looking cat. But I wasn’t
really staring at you this time, I was only giving you a sort of
friendly look over. You weren’t quite yourself, I think, when we met
last.”
“No, I certainly was not. So you are now making an inspection. May I
ask if I am to be informed of the diagnosis, as I think you call it?”
Now, to tell the truth, I had thought her looking rather haggard and
worn and decidedly thinner; and when her sprightliness subsided in the
intervals of our somewhat flippant talk, it had seemed to me that her
face took on an expression that was weary and even sad. But it would
hardly do to say as much.
“It is quite irregular,” I replied. “The diagnosis is for the doctor;
the patient is only concerned with the treatment. But I’ll make an
exception in your case, especially as my report is quite
unsensational. I thought you looked as if you had been doing rather
too much and not greatly enjoying the occupation. Am I right?”
“Yes. Quite right. I’ve had a lot of worry and bother lately, and not
enough rest and peace.”
“I hope all that is at an end now?”
“I don’t know that it is,” she replied, wearily, “or, for that matter,
that it will ever be. Fate or destiny, or whatever we may call it,
starts us upon a certain road, and along that road we must needs
trudge, wherever it may lead.”
I was rather startled at the sudden despondency of her tone.
Apparently the road that Mrs. Samway trod was not strewn with roses.
“Still,” I said, “it is a long road that has no turning.”
“It is,” she agreed, bitterly, “but many have to travel such a road,
to find the turning at last barred by the churchyard gate.”
“Oh, come!” I protested, “we don’t talk of churchyards at your time of
life. We think of the jolly wayside inns and the buttercups and
daisies and the may-blossom in the hedgerows. Churchyard indeed! We
will leave that to the old folk and the village donkey, if you
please.”
She smiled rather wanly. Her gaiety seemed to have deserted her for
good.
“The wayside inns and the wayside flowers,” said she, “are your
portion--at least, I hope so. They are not for me. And, after all,
there are worse things to think of than a nice quiet churchyard, with
the village donkey browsing among the graves, as you say.”
“I quite agree with you. From the standpoint of the disinterested
spectator, not contemplating freehold investments, nothing can be more
delightfully rustic and peaceful. It is the personal application that
I object to.”
Again she smiled, but very pensively, and for a while we walked on in
silence. Presently she resumed. “I used to think that the shortness of
life was quite a tragedy. That was when I was young. But now--”
“When you were young!” I interrupted. “Why, what are you now? I can
tell you, Mrs. Samway, that there is many a girl of twenty who would
be only too delighted to exchange personalities with you, and who
would stand to make a mighty fine bargain if she could do it. If you
talk like this, I shall have to refer you to the great Leonardo’s
advice to painters.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“He recommends the frequent use of a looking-glass.”
She gave me a quick glance and then blushed so very deeply that I was
quite alarmed lest I should have given offence. But her next words
reassured me.
“It was nice of you to say that, and most kindly meant. I won’t say
that I don’t care very much how I look, because that would be an
ungracious return for your compliment and it wouldn’t be quite true.
There are times when one is quite glad to feel that one looks
presentable; the present moment, for instance.”
I acknowledged the compliment, with a bow.
“Thank you,” I said. “That was more than I deserved. I only wish that
your fortune was equal to your looks, but I am afraid it isn’t. I have
an uncomfortable feeling that you are not very happy.”
“I’m afraid I’m not,” she replied. “Life is rather a lottery, you
know, and the worst of it is that you can only take a single ticket.
So, when you find that you’ve drawn the wrong number and you realize
that there is no second chance--well, it isn’t very inspiriting, is
it?”
I had to admit that it was not; and, after a short pause, she
continued:
“Women are poor dependent creatures, Dr. Jardine; dependent, I mean,
for their happiness on the people who surround them.”
“But that is true of us all.”
“Not quite. A man--like yourself, for instance--has his work and his
ambitions that make him independent of others. But, for a woman,
whatever pretences she may make as to larger interests in life, a
husband, a home and one or two nice children form the real goal of her
ambition.”
“But you are not a lone spinster, Mrs. Samway,” I reminded her.
“No, I am not. But I have no children, no proper home, and not a real
friend in the world--unless I may think of you as one.”
“I hope you always will,” I exclaimed impulsively; for there was, to
me, something very pathetic in the evident loneliness of this woman.
She must, I felt, be friendless indeed if she must needs appeal for
friendship to a comparative stranger like myself.
“I am glad to hear you say that,” she replied, “for I am making you
bear a friend’s burden. I hope you will forgive me for pouring out my
complaints to you in this way.”
“It isn’t difficult,” said I, “to bear other people’s troubles with
fortitude. But if sympathy is any good, believe me, Mrs. Samway, when
I tell you that I am really deeply grieved to think that you are
getting so much less out of life than you ought. I only wish that I
could do something more than sympathize.”
“I believe you do,” she said. “I felt, at Folkestone, how kind you
were--as a good man is to a woman in her moments of weakness. That is
why, I suppose, I was impelled to talk to you like this. And that is
why,” she added, after a little pause, “I felt a pang of envy when I
saw you pass with your pretty companion.”
I started somewhat at this. Where the deuce could she have seen us
near enough to tell whether my companion was pretty or not? I turned
the matter over rapidly in my mind, and meanwhile, I said:
“I don’t quite see why you envied me, Mrs. Samway.”
“I didn’t say that I envied _you_,” she replied, with a faint smile
and the suspicion of a blush.
“Or her either,” I retorted. “We are only the merest acquaintances.”
My conscience smote me somewhat as I made this outrageous statement,
but Mrs. Samway took me up instantly.
“Then you’ve only known her quite a short time?”
The rapidity with which she had jumped to this conclusion fairly took
my breath away, and I had answered her question before I was aware of
it.
“But,” I added, “I don’t quite see how you arrived at your
conclusion.”
“I thought,” she replied, “that you seemed to like one another very
well.”
“So we do, I think. But can’t acquaintances like one another?”
“Oh, certainly; but if they are a young man and a maiden they are not
likely to remain mere acquaintances very long. That was how I argued.”
“I see. Very acute of you. By the way, where did you see us? I didn’t
see you.”
“Of course you didn’t. Yet you passed quite close to me on the
Spaniard’s Road, immersed in conversation, and little suspecting that
the green eyes of envy were fixed on you.”
“Oh, now, Mrs. Samway, I can’t have that. They’re not green, you know,
although what their exact colour is I shouldn’t like to say offhand.”
“What! Not after that careful inspection?”
“That didn’t include the eyes. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I made
another, just to satisfy my curiosity and settle the question for
good.”
“Oh, do, by all means, if it is such a weighty question.”
We both halted and I stared into the clear depths of her singular,
pale hazel eyes with an impertinent affectation of profound scrutiny,
while she looked up smilingly into mine. Suddenly, to my utter
confusion, her eyes filled and she turned away her head.
“Oh! please forgive me!” she exclaimed. “I beg your pardon--I do beg
your pardon most earnestly for being such a wretched bundle of
emotions. You would forgive me if you knew--what I can’t tell you.”
“There is no need, dear Mrs. Samway,” I said very gently, laying my
hand on her arm. “Are we not friends? And may I not give you my
warmest sympathy without asking too curiously what brings the tears to
your eyes?”
I was, in truth, deeply moved, as a young man is apt to be by a pretty
woman’s tears. But more than this, something whispered to me that my
playful impertinence had suddenly brought home to her the void that
was in her life; the lack of intimate affection at which she had
seemed to hint. And, instantly, all that was masculine in me had risen
up with the immemorial instinct of the male in defence of the female;
for, whatever her faults may have been, Mrs. Samway was feminine to
the finger-tips.
She pressed my hand for a moment and impatiently brushed the tears
from her eyes.
“I do hope, Dr. Jardine,” she said, looking up at me with a smile,
“that your wife will be a good woman. You’ll be a dreadful victim if
she isn’t, with your quick sympathy and your endless patience with
feminine silliness. And now I won’t plague you any more with my
tantrums. I hope I am not bringing you a great deal out of your way.
You do live in this direction, don’t you?”
“Yes; and I have been assuming that my direction was yours, too. Is
that right? Are you going back to Hampstead Road?”
“Not at once. I’m going to make a call at Highgate first.”
“Then you’ll want to go up Highgate Rise or Swain’s Lane; and I will
walk up with you if you’ll let me.”
“I think my nearest way will be up the little path that leads out of
Swain’s Lane. You know it, I expect?”
“Yes. It is locally known as Love Lane: it leads to the crest of the
hill.”
“That is right. You shall see me to the top of it and then I’ll take
myself off and leave you in peace.”
We had by this time crossed Parliament Hill Fields and passed the end
of the Highgate Ponds. A few paces more brought us out at the top of
the Grove and a few more to the entrance of the rather steep and very
narrow lane. For some time Mrs. Samway walked by my side in silence,
and, by the reflective way in which she looked at the ground before
her, seemed to be wrapped in meditation, which I did not disturb. As
we entered the lane, however, she looked up at me thoughtfully and
said:
“I wonder what you think of me, Dr. Jardine.”
It was a fine opening for a compliment, but somehow, compliments
seemed out of place, after what had passed between us. I accordingly
evaded the question with another.
“What do you suppose I think of you?”
“I don’t know. I hardly know what I think of myself. You would be
quite justified in thinking me rather forward, to waylay you in this
deliberate fashion.”
“Well, I don’t. Your curiosity about that Folkestone affair seems most
natural and reasonable.”
“I’m glad you don’t think me forward,” she said; “but, as to my
curiosity, I am beginning to doubt whether it was that alone that
determined me of a sudden to come here and talk to you. I half suspect
that I was feeling a little more solitary than usual, and that some
instinct told me that you would be kind to me and say nice things and
pet me just a little--as you have done.”
I was deeply touched by her pathetic little confession; so deeply that
I could find nothing to say in return.
“You don’t think any the worse of me,” she continued, “for coming to
you and begging a little sympathy and friendship?”
As she spoke, she looked up very wistfully and earnestly in my face,
and rested her hand for a moment on my arm. I took it in mine and drew
her arm under my own as I replied:
“Of course I don’t. Only I think it a wonder and a shame that my poor
friendship and sympathy should be worth the consideration of a woman
like you.”
She pressed my arm slightly, and, after a little interval, said in a
low voice with just the suspicion of a tremor in it:
“You have been very kind to me, Dr. Jardine; more kind than you know.
I am very, very grateful to you for taking what was really an
intrusion so nicely.”
“It was not in the least an intrusion,” I protested; “and as to
gratitude, a good many men would be very delighted to earn it on the
same terms. You don’t seem to set much value on your own exceedingly
agreeable society.”
She smiled very prettily at this, and again we walked on for a while
up the slope without speaking. Once she turned her head as if
listening for some sound from behind us, but our feet were making so
much noise on the loose gravel, and the sound reverberated so much in
the narrow space between the wooden fences that I, at least, heard
nothing. Presently we turned a slight bend and came in sight of the
opening at the top of the hill, guarded by a couple of posts. Within a
few yards of the latter she halted, and withdrawing her hand from my
arm, turned round and faced me.
“We must say ‘Good-bye’ here,” said she. “I wonder if I shall ever see
you again.”
For a moment I felt a strong impulse to propose some future meeting at
a definite date, but, fortunately some glimmering of discretion--and
perhaps some thought of Sylvia--restrained me.
“Why shouldn’t you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But mine is rather a vagabond existence, and I suppose
you will be travelling about soon. I hope we shall meet again; but if
we do not, I shall always think of you as my friend, and you will have
a kind thought for me sometimes, won’t you?”
“I shall indeed. I shall think of you very often and hope that your
life is brighter than it seems to be now.”
“Thank you,” she said earnestly; “and now ‘Good-bye!’”
She held out her hand, and, as I grasped it, she looked in my face
with the wistful, yearning expression that I had noticed before, and
which so touched me to the heart that, yielding to a sudden impulse, I
drew her to me and kissed her. Dim as was the light of the fading
winter’s day, I could see that she had, in an instant, turned scarlet.
But she was not angry; for, as she drew away from me, shyly and almost
reluctantly, she gave me one of her prettiest smiles and whispered
“Good-bye” again. Then she ran out between the posts, and, turning
once again--and still as red as a peony--waved me a last farewell.
I stood in the narrow entrance looking out after her with a strange
mixture of emotions; pity, wonder and admiration and a little doubt as
to my own part in the late transaction. For I had never before kissed
a married woman, and cooling judgment did not altogether approve the
new departure; for if Mr. Samway was not all that he might be, still
he was Mr. Samway and I wasn’t. Nevertheless, I stood and watched my
late companion with very warm interest until she faded into the dusk;
and even then I continued to stand by the posts, gazing out into the
waning twilight and cogitating on our rather strange interview.
Suddenly my ear caught a sound from behind me, down the lane; a sound
which, while it set my suspicion on the alert, brought a broad grin to
my face. It was what I suppose I must call a stealthy footstep, but
the stealthiness might have stood for the very type and essence of
futility, for, as I have said, the ground sloped pretty steeply and
was covered with loose pebbles, whereby every movement of the foot was
rendered as audible as a thunderclap. However, absurd as the situation
seemed--if the unseen person was really trying to approach by
stealth--it was necessary to be on my guard. Moreover, if this should
chance to be the person with the nystagmus, the present seemed to be
an excellent opportunity for coming to some sort of understanding with
him.
Accordingly I wheeled about and began to walk back down the lane.
Instantly, the steps--no longer stealthy--began to retire. I quickened
my pace; the unknown and invisible eavesdropper quickened his. Then I
broke into a run, and so did he, notwithstanding which, I think I
should have had him but for an untoward accident. The ground was not
only sloping, but, under the loose gravel, was as hard as stone.
Consequently, the foothold was none of the best, as I presently
discovered, for, as I raced down one of the steepest slopes, the
pebbles suddenly rolled away under my foot and I lost my balance. But
I did not fall instantly. Half recovering, I flew forward, clawing the
air, stamping, staggering, kicking up the gravel, and making the most
infernal hubbub and clatter, before I finally subsided into a sitting
posture on the pebbles. When I rose, the footsteps were no longer
audible, though the lower end of the lane was still some distance
away.
I resumed my progress at a more sedate pace and kept a sharp look-out
for a possible ambush, though the lane was too narrow, even in the
darkness that now pervaded it, to furnish much cover to an enemy. Some
distance down, I came to an opening in the fence, where one or two
boards had become loose, and was half disposed to squeeze through and
explore. But I did not, for, on reflection, it occurred to me that if
the man was not there it would be useless for me to go, while if he
should be hiding behind the fence it would be simply insane of me to
put my head through the hole.
When I emerged into the road at the bottom, I looked about vaguely,
but, of course there was no sign of the fugitive--nor, indeed, could I
have identified him if I had met him. I loitered about undecidedly for
a minute or two, and then, realizing the futility of keeping a watch
on the entrance of the lane for a man whom I could not recognize, and
becoming conscious of a ravenous desire for food I made my way down
the Grove in the direction of my lodgings.