And he found her. He came over the hills on a gentle April morning and saw her beneath him. She was caught, it seemed, in a hedge. How gallantly George bore down to the rescue!
“Can I be of any assistance?” he said in his best manner, and that, I think, is always the pleasantest way to begin. Between “Can I be of any assistance?” and “With all my worldly goods I thee endow” one has not far to travel.
“I’m caught,” she said. “If you could——” Observe George spiking himself fearlessly.
“I say, you really are! Wait a moment.”
“It’s very kind of you.”
There—he has done it.
“Thank you so much,” she said, with a pretty smile. “Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!”
The sweet look of pain on her face!
“It’s nothing,” said George nobly. And it really was nothing. One can get a delightful amount of blood and sympathy from the most insignificant scratch.
They hesitated a moment. She looked on the ground; he looked at her. Then his eyes wandered round the beautiful day, and came back to her just as she looked up.
“It is a wonderful day, isn’t it?” he said suddenly.
“Yes,” she breathed.
It seemed absurd to separate on such a day when they were both wandering, and Heaven had brought them together.
“I say, dash it,” said George suddenly: “what are you going to do? Are you going anywhere particular?”
“Not very particular.”
“Neither am I. Can’t we go there together?”
“I was just going to have lunch.”
“So was I. Well, there you are. It would be silly if you sat here and ate—what are yours, by the way?”
“Only mutton, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, mine are beef. Well, if you sat here and ate mutton sandwiches and I sat a hundred yards farther on and ate beef ones, we should look ridiculous, shouldn’t we?”
“It would be rather silly,” she smiled.
So they sat down and had their sandwiches together.
“My name is Carfax,” he said, “Geoffrey Carfax.” Oh, George! And to a woman! However, she wouldn’t tell him hers.
They spent an hour over lunch. They wandered together for another hour. Need I tell you all the things they said? But they didn’t talk of London.
“Oh, I must be going,” she said suddenly. “I didn’t know it was so late. No, I know my way. Don’t come with me. Good-bye.”
“It can’t be good-bye,” said George in dismay. “I’ve only just found you. Where do you live? Who are you?”
“Don’t let’s spoil it,” she smiled. “It’s been a wonderful day—a wonderful little piece of a day. We’ll always remember it. I don’t think it’s meant to go on; it stops just here.”
“I must see you again,” said George firmly. “Will you be there to-morrow, at the same time—at the place where we met?”
“I might.” She sighed. “And I mightn’t.”
But George knew she would.
“Then good-bye,” he said, holding out his hand.
“My name is Rosamund,” she whispered, and fled.
He watched her out of sight, marvelling how bravely she walked. Then he started for home, his head full of strange fancies....
He found a road an hour later; the road went on and on, it turned and branched and doubled—he scarcely noticed it. The church clock was striking seven as he came into the village.
It was a wonderful lunch he took with him next day. Chicken and tongue and cake and chocolate and hard-boiled eggs. He ate it alone (by the corner of a wood, five miles from the hedge which captured her) at half-past three. That day was a nightmare. He never found the place again, though he tried all through the week remaining to him. He had no hopes after that day of seeing her, but only to have found the hedge would have been some satisfaction. At least he could sit there and sigh—and curse himself for a fool.
He went back to Islington knowing that he had had his chance and missed it. By next April he had forgotten her. He was convinced that she was not the woman. The woman had still to be found. He went to another part of the country and looked for her.
And now he was back at “The Dog and Duck” again. Surely he would find her to-day. It was the time; it must be almost the place. Would the loved one be there? He was not sure whether he wanted her to be the woman of five years ago or not. Whoever she was, she would be the one he sought. He had walked some miles; funny if he stumbled upon the very place suddenly.
Memories of five years ago were flooding his mind. Had he really been here, or had he only dreamed of it? Surely that was the hill down which he had come; surely that clump of trees on the right had been there before. And—could that be the very hedge?
It was.
And there was a woman caught in it.
IV
George ran down the hill, his heart thumping heavily at his ribs.... She had her back towards him.
“Can I be of any assistance?” he said in his best manner. But she didn’t need to be rich now; there was that little house at Bedford Park.
She turned round.
It was Gertie Morrison!
Silly of him; of course, it wasn’t Miss Morrison; but it was extraordinarily like her. Prettier, though.
“Why, Mr. Crosby!” she said.
It was Gertie Morrison.
“You!” he said angrily.
He was furious that such a trick should have been played upon him at this moment; furious to be reminded suddenly that he was George Crosby of Muswell Hill. Muswell Hill, the boarding-house—Good Lord! Gertie Morrison! Algy Traill’s Gertie.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said, shrinking from him. She saw he was angry with her; she vaguely understood why.
Then George laughed. After all, she hadn’t deliberately put herself in his way. She could hardly be expected to avoid the whole of England (outside Muswell Hill) until she knew exactly where George Crosby proposed to take his walk. What a child he was to be angry with her.
When he laughed, she laughed too—a little nervously.
“Let me help,” he said. He scratched his fingers fearlessly on her behalf. What should he do afterwards? he wondered. His day was spoilt anyhow. He could hardly leave her.
“Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!” she said. She said it very sweetly, in a voice that only faintly reminded him of the Gertie of Muswell Hill.
“It’s nothing,” he answered, as he had answered five years ago.
They stood looking at each other. George