around for any chance of escape.
She heard the man's step coming down the passage—slowly too, with cruel deliberation; her father knew well that there was no way out, that she was a secured prisoner.
There was a doorway by her: she crouched into it, and with her breath bursting out in difficult sobs, and her heart beating as if to break, clung to the door-handle with all her strength. She determined that she would not be torn away. Then her head swam round—the heavy tread approached—she shut her eyes in her agony.
When he was just in front of her the sound of the man's step ceased.
There was a pause before his words came.
CHAPTER V.
IN THE TEMPLE.
A pause of a few seconds only, but seeming long terrible minutes, while she waited for the harsh satirical tones of her father's voice, which she knew so well.
At last the words came.
"You seem to be unwell; can I be of assistance to you in any way?"
She started, opened her eyes wide, and stared in the speaker's face.
It was not her father!
For it happened that the solicitor had not seen her, and had continued his route along Fleet Street, when she darted into Devereux Court. The steps she had heard behind her were not her father's. The person who had spoken was a stranger, young and of pleasing exterior. It was no other than Mr. Thomas Hudson.
On his way to the Devereux Court entrance to the Temple, he had seen this girl crouching in the doorway. With the gallantry and sympathy of an Irishman, and really thinking that she was ill, he came to the rescue. Not that his motives for this were altogether unselfish. He saw that the girl was young and graceful of form, and her face, he imagined, must be agreeable also, to be consistent with the rest. He had nothing to do for the moment, and was only too glad to fall into an adventure with a pretty woman.
She looked at him wildly for a few seconds, then cried:
"Why, you are not—" and she checked herself.
"No I am not," he promptly replied; "are you afraid of someone then. Is any blackguard following you?"
Her eyes wandered round like those of an animal in presence of a great danger. Weariness and the reaction after her excitement had dulled her courage.
"Yes, I am hunted," she said at last, sadly.
"Hunted! by whom?" asked the barrister, becoming rather suspicious that his new friend might prove to be a runaway pickpocket, or something else bad—"by whom?"
She seemed only then to call her faculties together, to realise that she was talking to, nay, confiding in, a stranger. Her cold collected look returned to her, and it must be confessed that she did not appear nearly as pretty as with her late timid expression.
"Why do you wish to know?"
"Well, I saw that you looked ill, or that you were in fear of something, and I wished to be of service if possible."
She laughed bitterly. "Is that all? Well, I'll answer your question. I'm not running away from the police, but from my stepmother and father. I don't mind telling you," she went on in tones of reckless despair, "I don't see what harm it will do me, or what good it will do you."
"Running away from home!"
"Yes! for good."
"But where are you going?"
"Going—I don't know—to the casual ward I suppose—if—if I can get there."
Mary felt a strange faintness stealing over her, and the young man noticed it.
"You are ill—let me put you into a cab."
"No thank you," she replied decidedly.
"I live close here," he went on—"in the Temple. I wish you would allow me to take you to my rooms—you seem faint—a rest for a little while and a cup of tea will do you good. Now do let me persuade you." He paused and their eyes met. "No, you need not be afraid of me," he said, translating her look.
She was looking at him, earnestly into him, and she read his character. She saw that she need not fear him—that is so long as she took proper care of herself. There was nothing violent or really wicked in the merry, careless, rather weak face. This was not the old man of the Park. She could distinguish that there were generous feelings in this young man as well as self-indulgence.
She smiled as she thought how shrewd she was getting at character-reading, what a lot she had learned of the world in one day.
"Why do you laugh?" he asked.
"At my thoughts?"
"Well I am glad that they are merrier than they were just now."
"I was thinking how well I can read your character. I saw that I need not fear you much. I can trust you."
This was a very dangerous admission for a young girl to make to a young man; but Mary, clever though she was, could hardly be expected to know exactly how to behave under such novel circumstances.
"I am delighted to hear you say so," replied Hudson excitedly. "Now take my arm and we will go to my rooms. You want somebody to take care of you, my poor little girl."
There was a tenderness in his last words that cooled Mary's confidential mood; but she took his arm, and she spoke no word while Hudson rang the bell, and they passed into the Temple through a gate that was opened by invisible hands, like that of some magic castle in the fairy tales she had read, and then crossed the deserted quadrangle, and ascended two flights of dusty stone stairs, till they came to a solid and ancient oak door with bolts and bars enough to resist the siege of twenty locksmiths for a week, and with Mr. T. Hudson painted over it in white letters.
He opened this with one key, and there was another inner, less formidable door which he opened with another smaller key. It was just like going into a prison, she fancied, and the gloomy deserted passages half frightened her. How easily one could be murdered in this lonely place, she thought, and no one hear one's cries.
She followed him into the dark chambers, then the barrister lit a lamp and proceeded to do the honours of his establishment.
"Here we are at last—a curious looking place is it not? Now you must sit down in this armchair and make yourself comfortable, while I go out and get you something to eat. It will do you good—I can see what you want."
"I really want nothing, sir; indeed I—"
"Now, don't contradict your doctor, Miss—Miss—Miss—what is it you said?"
She
