ind
by this time that never yet was a guest treated so abominably by her
hostess as I have treated you.

"The delay that has prevented me from explaining my strange conduct
is, believe me, a delay for which I am not to blame. One of the many
delicate little difficulties which beset so essentially confidential
a business as mine occurred here (as I have since discovered) while
we were taking the air this afternoon in Kensington Gardens. I see no
chance of being able to get back to you for some hours to come, and I
have a word of very urgent caution for your private ear, which has been
too long delayed already. So I must use the spare minutes as they come,
and write.

"Here is caution the first. On no account venture outside the door again
this evening, and be very careful, while the daylight lasts, not to
show yourself at any of the front windows. I have reason to fear that
a certain charming person now staying with me may possibly be watched.
Don't be alarmed, and don't be impatient; you shall know why.

"I can only explain myself by going back to our unlucky meeting in the
Gardens with that reverend gentleman who was so obliging as to follow us
both back to my house.

"It crossed my mind, just as we were close to the door, that there
might be a motive for the parson's anxiety to trace us home, far less
creditable to his taste, and far more dangerous to both of us, than
the motive you supposed him to have. In plainer words, Lydia, I rather
doubted whether you had met with another admirer; and I strongly
suspected that you had encountered another enemy instead. There was
no time to tell you this. There was only time to see you safe into the
house, and to make sure of the parson (in case my suspicions were right)
by treating him as he had treated us; I mean, by following him in his
turn.

"I kept some little distance behind him at first, to turn the thing over
in my mind, and to be satisfied that my doubts were not misleading me.
We have no concealments from each other; and you shall know what my
doubts were.

"I was not surprised at _your_ recognizing _him_; he is not at all
a common-looking old man; and you had seen him twice in
Somersetshire--once when you asked your way of him to Mrs. Armadale's
house, and once when you saw him again on your way back to the railroad.
But I was a little puzzled (considering that you had your veil down
on both those occasions, and your veil down also when we were in the
Gardens