“I shall certainly not tell Mrs. Merriam,” he replied, dryly.
She cast him a quick, suspicious glance out of otherwise glowing eyes. Then she bade him farewell, and tripped through the door that he held open for her.
The following day was Sunday. Although the season was the end of March, there had been a sudden cold snap. In the night the temperature had fallen and the wind risen. The morning gave the spectacle of a blizzard, driving sleet and snow. Hugh laid down the rough pencilled scraps of the verses he had been polishing, and went to look disconsolately out of the window. The prospect was uninviting; scarcely anything visible through the vibrating screen of swift, horizontal grey lines. He had agreed to meet Minna at noon, weather permitting, in the little patch of wood that stretched behind The Lindens, her father’s house, to more or less open country. The weather was hardly in a permissive mood. He felt that he could annul the engagement with a free conscience. It would be madness of Minna to expect its fulfilment. But knowing that a woman in love is capable of many madnesses, he resolved to keep his tryst on the chance of being able to despatch her summarily home again. He started out, with ulster collar drawn up to his ears, and thick gloves, and strode fast through the gale along the deserted pavements. At the appointed spot in the wood he waited for a quarter of an hour. Minna did not come. He congratulated her on her common sense, greater than his own, and retraced his steps. As he emerged from the branch lane leading from the wood on to the heath road, and meeting the latter at a point somewhat nearer the Merriams’ house than The Lindens, he was passed by a hansom cab, the window of which was down. After a few yards, the trap door in the roof was pushed open and the cabman drew up. Hugh approached, and perceived through the side glass Irene’s expectant face. On the window being pulled up, he saw her sitting in the chilliness of an indoor silk blouse, while by her side, huddled up in her sealskin jacket, was a dirty, emaciated, shivering little girl.
“What a lucky chance to have passed you!” cried Irene; “will you do something real kind for me?”
“Anything in the world. I suppose I’m to fetch a doctor,” he replied, with an eye on her new protégée.