He sent the note
by his land-lady's boy, and as soon as he had finished his lunch,
which meant his dinner, for he could no longer afford to dull his
soul in its best time for reading and thinking, he set out to find
Park Gate, which he took for some row of dwellings in the suburbs.
Going in the direction pointed out, and finding he had left all the
houses behind him, he stopped at the gate of Osterfield Park to make
further inquiry. The door of the lodge was opened by one whom he
took, for the first half second, to be a child, but recognized the
next as the same young woman whose book he had picked up in the
fields a few months before. He had never seen her since, but her
deformity and her face together had made it easy to remember her.
"We have met before," he said, in answer to her courtesy and smile,
"and you must now do me a small favour if you can."
"I shall be most happy, sir. Please come in," she answered.
"I am sorry I cannot at this moment, as I have an engagement. Can
you tell me where Mr. Polwarth of the Park Gate lives?"
The girl's smile of sweetness changed to one of amusement as she
repeated, in a gentle voice through which ran a thread of suffering,
"Come in, sir, please.
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