He did so gingerly, as fearing to increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street. Their sound appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he begun to follow ere she paused. A second time she addressed herself to flight; and a second time she paused. Then she turned about, and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side continued to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness. At length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.
'Are you an English gentleman?' she cried.
The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation. He was the spirit of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse from amorous adventures. He looked east and west; but the houses that looked down upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off from any human intervention. His looks returned at last upon the suppliant.
He remarked with irritation that she was charming both in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping and lost in the city of diurnal sleep.
'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion; and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street, which has deceived us both.' An unmistakable relief appeared upon the lady's face. 'I might have guessed it!' she exclaimed. 'Thank you a thousand times! But at this hour, in this appalling silence, and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors - oh, lost in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the words. 'I beg you to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant inflection. 'I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone - I had a shock, oh, what a shock! I beg of you to be my escort.'
'My dear madam,' responded Challoner heavily, 'my arm is at your service.'
'She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the direction of the city. One thing was plain, among so much that was obscure: it was plain her fears were genuine. Still, as she went, she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and longed for release.
'Madam,' he said at last, 'I am, of course, charmed to be of use to any lady; but I confess I was bound in a direction opposite to that you follow, and a word of explanation - '
'Hush!' she sobbed, 'not here - not here!'
The blood of Challoner ran cold. He might have thought the lady mad; but his memory was charged with more perilous stuff; and in view of the detonation, the smoke and the flight of the ill-assorted trio, his mind was lost among mysteries. So they continued to thread the maze of streets in silence, with the speed of a guilty flight, and both thrilling with incommunicable terrors. In time, however, and above all by their quick pace of walking, the pair began to rise to firmer spirits; the lady ceased to peer about the corners; and Challoner, emboldened by the resonant tread and distant figure of a constable, returned to the charge with more of spirit and directness.
'I thought,' said he, in the tone of conversation, 'that I had indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in the company of two gentlemen.'
'Oh!' she said, 'you need not fear to wound me by the truth.
You saw me flee from a common lodging-house, and my companions were not gentlemen. In such a case, the best of compliments is to be frank.'
'I thought,' resumed Challoner, encouraged as much as he was surprised by the spirit of her reply, 'to have perceived, besides, a certain odour. A noise, too - I do not know to what I should compare it - '
'Silence!' she cried. 'You do not know the danger you invoke. Wait, only wait; and as soon as we have left those streets, and got beyond the reach of listeners, all shall be explained. Meanwhile, avoid the topic. What a sight is this sleeping city!' she exclaimed; and then, with a most thrilling voice, '"Dear God," she quoted, "the very houses seem asleep, and all that mighty heart is lying still."'
'I perceive, madam,' said he, 'you are a reader.'
'I am more than that,' she answered, with a sigh. 'I am a girl condemned to thoughts beyond her age; and so untoward is my fate, that this walk upon the arm of a stranger is like an interlude of peace.'
They had come by this time to the neighbourhood of the Victoria Station and here, at a street corner, the young lady paused, withdrew her arm from Challoner's, and looked up and down as though in pain or indecision. Then, with a lovely change of countenance, and laying her gloved hand upon his arm - 'What you already think of me,' she said, 'I tremble to conceive; yet I must here condemn myself still further. Here I must leave you, and here I beseech you to wait for my return. Do not attempt to follow me or spy upon my actions.
Suspend yet awhile your judgment of a girl as innocent as your own sister; and do not, above all, desert me. Stranger as you are, I have none else to look to. You see me in sorrow and great fear; you are a gentleman, courteous and kind: and when I beg for a few minutes' patience, I make sure beforehand you will not deny me.'