ch as ventured on a backward glance at
the road by which she had retired, and never detected the spy dogging
her footsteps, under cover of the empty houses and the brick-heaps by
the roadside.

Smoothly and gracefully, carefully preserving the speckless integrity
of her dress, never hastening her pace, and never looking aside to
the right hand or the left, Miss Gwilt pursued her way toward the open
country. The suburban road branched off at its end in two directions. On
the left, the path wound through a ragged little coppice to the grazing
grounds of a neighboring farm; on the right, it led across a hillock
of waste land to the high-road. Stopping a moment to consider, but not
showing the spy that she suspected him by glancing behind her while
there was a hiding-place within his reach, Miss Gwilt took the path
across the hillock. "I'll catch him there," she said to herself, looking
up quietly at the long straight line of the empty high-road.

Once on the ground that she had chosen for her purpose, she met the
difficulties of the position with perfect tact and self-possession.
After walking some thirty yards along the road, she let her nosegay
drop, half turned round in stooping to pick it up, saw the man stopping
at the same moment behind her, and instantly went on again, quickening
her pace little by little, until she was walking at the top of her
speed. The spy fell into the snare laid for him. Seeing the night
coming, and fearing that he might lose sight of her in the darkness, he
rapidly lessened the distance between them. Miss Gwilt went on faster
and faster till she plainly heard his footstep behind her, then stopped,
turned, and met the man face to face the next moment.

"My compliments to Mr. Armadale," she said, "and tell him I've caught
you watching me."

"I'm not watching you, miss," retorted the spy, thrown off his guard by
the daring plainness of the language in which she had spoken to him.

Miss Gwilt's eyes measured him contemptuously from head to foot. He was
a weakly, undersized man. She was the taller, and (quite possibly) the
stronger of the two.

"Take your hat off, you blackguard, when you speak to a lady," she said,
and tossed his hat in an instant, across a ditch by which they were
standing, into a pool on the other side.

This time the spy was on his guard. He knew as well as Miss Gwilt knew
the use which might be made of the precious minutes, if he turned his
back on her and crossed the