She looked up, and saw a stranger approaching her
through the sunlight and shadows of the wood--a tall man, in a loose, gray
overcoat.
A stranger? No. As he came nearer to her, the face seemed very familiar;
and yet in that first moment she could not imagine where she had seen him.
A little nearer, and she remembered all at once. This was her companion
of the long railway journey from London to Holborough. She blushed at
the recollection, not altogether displeased to see him again, and yet
remembering bitterly that cruel mistake she had made about Arden Court. She
might be able to explain her error now, if he should recognise her and stop
to speak; but that was scarcely likely. He had forgotten her utterly, no
doubt, by this time.
She went on with her sketching--a trailing spray of Irish ivy, winding away
and losing itself in a confusion of bramble and fern, every leaf sharply
defined by the light pencil touches, with loving pre-Raphaelite care--she
went on, trying to think that it was not the slightest consequence to
her whether this man remembered their brief acquaintance of the
railway-carriage. And yet she would have been wounded, ever so little,
if he had forgotten her. She knew so few people, that this accidental
acquaintance seemed almost a friend. He had known her brother, too; and
there had been something in his manner that implied an interest in her
fate.
She bent a little lower over the sketch-book, doing her uttermost not to be
seen, perhaps all the more because she really did wish for the opportunity
of explaining that mistake about Arden Court.
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