controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion;
not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the
manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life. The voice, little
as I had yet heard of it, had something curiously still and
mechanical in its tones, and the utterance was remarkably rapid.
She held a small bag in her hand: and her dress--bonnet, shawl,
and gown all of white--was, so far as I could guess, certainly not
composed of very delicate or very expensive materials. Her figure
was slight, and rather above the average height--her gait and
actions free from the slightest approach to extravagance. This
was all that I could observe of her in the dim light and under the
perplexingly strange circumstances of our meeting. What sort of a
woman she was, and how she came to be out alone in the high-road,
an hour after midnight, I altogether failed to guess. The one
thing of which I felt certain was, that the grossest of mankind
could not have misconstrued her motive in speaking, even at that
suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place.

"Did you hear me?" she said, still quietly and rapidly, and
without the least fretfulness or impatience. "I asked if that was
the way to London."

"Yes," I replied, "that is the way: it leads to St. John's Wood
and 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? 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