rden." Tilda ran, so fast that at the
head of the steps she had to clutch at the railing and draw breath.

The garden, too, was deserted. A gravelled path, scarcely four feet
wide, ran straight to the end of it, and along this she hurried, not
daring to look back, but aware that all the back windows were following
her--watching and following her--with horrible curtainless eyes.

The garden, planted for utility, was passably well kept. It contained,
in all its parcelled length, not a single flower. At the very end a few
currant bushes partially hid the front of the shed and glass-house.
They were the one scrap of cover, and when she reached them she had a
mind to crouch and hide, if only for a moment, from the staring windows.

Her own eyes, as she passed these bushes, were fastened on the shed.
But it seemed that someone else had discovered shelter here; for with a
quick, half-guttural cry, like that of a startled animal, a small figure
started up, close by her feet, and stood and edged away from her with an
arm lifted as if to ward off a blow.

It was a small boy--a boy abominably ragged and with smears of blacking
thick on his face, but for all that a good-looking child. Tilda gazed
at him, and he gazed back, still without lowering his arm. He was
trembling, too.

"Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" said Tilda, lifting the brim of her
chip hat and quoting from one of Mr. Maggs's most effective dramatic
sketches. But as the boy stared, not taking the allusion, she went on,
almost in the same breath, "Is your name Arthur--Arthur Miles?"

It seemed that he did not hear. At any rate he still backed and edged
away from her, with eyes distended--she had seen their like in the ring,
in beautiful terrified horses, but never in human creatures.

--"Because, if you 're Arthur Miles, I got a message for you."

A tattered book lay on the turf at her feet. She picked it up and held
it out to him. For a while he looked at her eyes, and from them to the
book, unable to believe. Then, with a noise like a sob, he sprang and
snatched it, and hid it with a hug in the breast of his coat.

"I got a message for you," repeated Tilda. "There's someone wants to
see you, very bad."

"You go away!" said the boy sullenly. "You don't know. If _he_ catches
you, there's no chance."

Tilda had time in her distress to be astonished by his voice. It was
pure, distinct, with the tone of a sphere not hers. Yet she recognised
it.