rown orange leaves that
were lying scattered on the ground. He got a little more interested when
he neared the Round Pond; for the wind had freshened; and there were
several handsome craft out there on the raging deep, braving well the
sudden squalls that laid them right on their beam-ends, and then let
them come staggering and dripping up to windward. But there were two
small boys there who had brought with them a tiny vessel of home-made
build, with a couple of lugsails, a jib, and no rudder; and it was a
great disappointment to them that this nondescript craft would move, if
it moved at all, in an uncertain circle. Macleod came to their
assistance--got a bit of floating stick, and carved out of it a rude
rudder, altered the sails, and altogether put the ship into such
sea-going trim that, when she was fairly launched, she kept a pretty
good course for the other side, where doubtless she arrived in safety,
and discharged her passengers and cargo. He was almost sorry to part
with the two small ship-owners. They almost seemed to him the only
people he knew in London.

But surely he had not come all the way from Castle Dare to walk about
Kensington Gardens! What had become of that intense longing to see
her--to hear her speak--that had made his life at home a constant
torment and misery? Well, it still held possession of him; but all the
same there was this indefinable dread that held him back. Perhaps he was
afraid that he would have to confess to her the true reason for his
having come to London. Perhaps he feared he might find her something
entirely different from the creature of his dreams. At all events as he
returned to his room and sat down by himself to think over all the
things that might accrue from this step of his, he only got farther and
farther into a haze of nervous indecision. One thing only was clear to
him: with all his hatred and jealousy of the theatre, to the theatre
that night he would have to go. He could not know that she was so near
to him--that at a certain time and place he would certainly see her and
listen to her--without going. He bethought him, moreover, of what he had
once heard her say--that while she could fairly well make out the people
in the galleries and boxes, those who were sitting in the stalls close
to the orchestra were, by reason of the glare of the foot-lights, quite
invisible to her. Might he not, then, get into some corner where,
himself unseen, he might be so near to her th