Ere the words were spoken, the gipsy had vanished behind the bushes, leaving Isidora and myself in marvellous astonishment at a scene equally unexpected and incomprehensible.
When we reached home, Mr. Hartley was waiting for us; and after dinner, when _tête-à-tête_, I recounted our adventure in the Park. He listened attentively to the detail, and asked me many questions, to which, however, I could give no satisfactory replies.
“I am at a loss,” he said, “to fathom this singular affair. The woman could have no object in creating an unnecessary alarm, and yet her communication was so vague, that one cannot even guess what the danger is, or from what quarter it may be expected. Still her caution is not to be despised, and we must be upon our guard, until it pleases your swarthy friend to be more explicit than she has been. One course must be pursued. We must keep strangers at a distance, and look at all as enemies.” He took the note I had received from Mr. Clifford on the evening after our interview, and read it carefully.
“It is his signature indubitably,” he murmured. “These well-remembered characters are not to be mistaken. Had he received you kindly--had he evinced the slightest symptom of abated displeasure when you addressed him--and did a hope remain that time could mitigate his callous feelings towards an erring child--I would, in that case, have suspected that in the monk you had that secret enemy of whom you have been warned to beware. But no--the Jesuit is secure; the dupe is all his own. He will be contented with rendering all future attempts to gain the old man’s presence unavailing. That he can effect, and more would be unnecessary. To me, the occurrence is involved in mystery too deep to be even guessed at, and it seems one that time only can unravel.”
Although to the amatory effusions which reached me by every post I was cold as St. Senanus, when he was so barbarously virtuous as to warn a single lady off his premises at midnight, still to woman’s fascination I was not altogether insensible. By singular accident, I had encountered a girl of extraordinary beauty in my walks; and though her demeanour was modest and retiring, I still fancied that I did not pass her by unnoticed. She was apparently under eighteen; and to the sweetest face imaginable, united a faultless figure. Her mourning dress was simple and becoming; and her general appearance indicated an humble respectability. To have insinuated aught against the constancy of my passion for Isidora, should be, as Lord Ogleby says, “by all the laws of love, death to the offender,” but still, when we passed each other in the street, I found myself involuntarily look round. Once, I imagined that the pretty incognita directed a furtive glance at me; and then, blushing at detection, she bent her eyes upon the ground, and walked hastily on, as if prohibiting any attempt on my part to address her, had such been my intention. But by a strange accident, the introduction that propriety forbade, chance effected.