the
Regent's Park. You must excuse my not answering you before. I was
rather startled by your sudden appearance in the road; and I am, even
now, quite unable to account for it."

"You don't suspect me of doing anything wrong, do you? I have done
nothing wrong. I have met with an accident--I am very unfortunate in
being here alone so late. Why do you suspect me of doing wrong?"

She spoke with unnecessary earnestness and agitation, and shrank back
from me several paces. I did my best to reassure her.

"Pray don't suppose that I have any idea of suspecting you," I said,
"or any other wish than to be of assistance to you, if I can. I only
wondered at your appearance in the road, because it seemed to me to be
empty the instant before I saw you."

She turned, and pointed back to a place at the junction of the road to
London and the road to Hampstead, where there was a gap in the hedge.

"I heard you coming," she said, "and hid there to see what sort of man
you were, before I risked speaking. I doubted and feared about it till
you passed; and then I was obliged to steal after you, and touch you."

Steal after me and touch me? Why not call to me? Strange, to say the
least of it.

"May I trust you?" she asked. "You don't think the worse of me because
I have met with an accident?" She stopped in confusion; shifted her bag
from one hand to the other; and sighed bitterly.

The loneliness and helplessness of the woman touched me. The natural
impulse to assist her and to spare her got the better of the judgment,
the caution, the worldly tact, which an older, wiser, and colder man
might have summoned to help him in this strange emergency.

"You may trust me for any harmless purpose," I said. "If it troubles
you to explain your strange situation to me, don't think of returning
to the subject again. I have no right to ask you for any explanations.
Tell me how I can help you; and if I can, I will."

"You are very kind, and I am very, very thankful to have met you." The
first touch of womanly tenderness that I had heard from her trembled in
her voice as she said the words; but no tears glistened in those large,
wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which were still fixed on me. "I
have only been in London once before," she went on, more and more
rapidly, "and I know nothing about that side of it, yonder. Can I get
a fly, or a carriage of any kind? Is it too late? I don't know. If you
could show me where to get a fly-