I'm
expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?"
"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only
thinking--it isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I
live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get
back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib
about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth
approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I
could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the
house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out
that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith."
"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of
one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away."
"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice
seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life."
This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten:
the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The
unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end
to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she
had tried to break free.
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