s. He pulled them
out of her hand. Only one woman's feet had worn them, he knew that.

"Left here last summer by a lady," said the girl; "might be the one you
are looking for. Never saw any feet so small."

Gregory rose and questioned her.

They might have come in a wagon and spider, she could not tell. But the
gentleman was very handsome, tall, lovely figure, blue eyes, wore gloves
always when he went out. An English officer, perhaps; no Africander,
certainly.

Gregory stopped her.

The lady? Well, she was pretty, rather, the girl said; very cold, dull
air, silent. They stayed for, it might be, five days; slept in the wing
over against the stoep; quarrelled sometimes, she thought--the lady.
She had seen everything when she went in to wait. One day the gentleman
touched her hair; she drew back from him as though his fingers poisoned
her. Went to the other end of the room if he came to sit near her.
Walked out alone. Cold wife for such a handsome husband, the girl
thought; she evidently pitied him, he was such a beautiful man. They
went away early one morning, how, or in which way, the girl could not
tell.

Gregory inquired of the servants, but nothing more was to be learnt; so
the next morning he saddled his horse and went on. At the farms he came
to the good old ooms and tantes asked him to have coffee, and the little
shoeless children peeped out at the stranger from behind ovens and
gables; but no one had seen what he asked for. This way and that he rode
to pick up the thread he had dropped, but the spider and the wagon, the
little lady and the handsome gentleman, no one had seen. In the towns he
fared yet worse.

Once indeed hope came to him. On the stoep of an hotel at which he
stayed the night in a certain little village, there walked a gentleman,
grave and kindly-looking. It was not hard to open conversation with him
about the weather, and then--Had he ever seen such and such people,
a gentleman and a lady, a spider and wagon, arrive at that place? The
kindly gentleman shook his head. What was the lady like, he inquired.

Gregory painted. Hair like silken floss, small mouth, underlip very full
and pink, upper lip pink but very thin and curled; there were four white
spots on the nail of her right hand forefinger, and her eyebrows were
very delicately curved.

"Yes; and a rose-bud tinge in the cheeks; hands like lilies, and
perfectly seraphic smile."

"That is she! that is she!" cried Gregory.

Who el