Lucilla was silent--suspiciously silent as I thought, after what Zillah had told me. She had, as I fancied, the look of a person who was listening intently. Arrived at the cottage of the rheumatic woman, she stopped and went in, while I waited outside. The affair of the embrocation was soon over. She was out again in a minute--and this time, she took my arm of her own accord.

"Shall we go a little farther?" she said. "It is so nice and cool at this hour of the evening."

Her object in view, whatever it might be, was evidently an object that lay beyond the village. In the solemn, peaceful twilight we followed the lonely windings of the valley along which I had passed in the morning. When we came opposite the little solitary house, which I had already learnt to know as "Browndown," I felt her hand unconsciously tighten on my arm. "Aha!" I said to myself. "Has Browndown anything to do with this?"

"Does the view look very lonely to-night?" she asked, waving her cane over the scene before us.

The true meaning of that question I took to be, "Do you see anybody walking out to-night?" It was not my business to interpret her meaning, before she had thought fit to confide her secret to me. "To my mind, my dear," was all I said, "it is a very beautiful view."

She fell silent again, and absorbed herself in her own thoughts. We turned into a new winding of the valley--and there, walking towards us from the opposite direction, was a human figure at last--the figure of a solitary man!

As we got nearer to each other I perceived that he was a gentleman; dressed in a light shooting-jacket, and wearing a felt hat of the conical Italian shape. A little nearer--and I saw that he was young. Nearer still--and I discovered that he was handsome, though in rather an effeminate way. At the same moment, Lucilla heard his footstep. Her color instantly rose; and once again I felt her hand tighten involuntarily round my arm. (Good! Here was the mysterious object of Zillah's warning to me found at last!)

I have, and I don't mind acknowledging it, an eye for a handsome man. I looked at him as he passed us. Now I solemnly assure you, I am not an ugly woman. Nevertheless, as our eyes met, I saw the strange gentleman's face suddenly contract, with an expression which told me plainly that I had produced a disagreeable impression on him. With some difficulty--for my companion was holding my arm, and seemed to be disposed to stop altogether--I quickened my pace so as to get by him rapidly; showing him, I dare say, that I thought the change in his face when I looked at him, an impertinence on his part. However that may be, after a momentary interval, I heard his step behind. The man had turned, and had followed us.

He came close to me, on the opposite side to Lucilla, and took off his hat.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said. "You looked at me just now."

At the first sound of his voice, I felt Lucilla start. Her hand began to tremble on my arm with some sudden agitation, inconceivable to me. In the double surprise of discovering this, and of finding myself charged so abruptly with the offense of looking at a gentleman, I suffered the most exceptional of all losses (where a woman is concerned)--the loss of my tongue.

He gave me no time to recover myself. He proceeded with what he had to say--speaking, mind, in the tone of a perfectly well-bred man; with nothing wild in his look, and nothing odd in his manner.

"Excuse me, if I venture on asking you a very strange question," he went on. "Did you happen to be at Exeter, on the third of last month?"

(I must have been more or less than woman, if I had not recovered the use of my tongue now!)

"I never was at Exeter in my life, sir," I answered. "May I ask, on my side, why you put the question to me?"

Instead of replying, he looked at Lucilla.

"Pardon me, once more. Perhaps this young lady----?"

He was plainly on the point of inquiring next, whether Lucilla had been at Exeter--when he checked himself.