If he had not fancied that he saw one of his London acquaintances in the distance, he might have followed Bessie, but he could not be seen, for fear that the reason for his being there should come out, and it become known that a McPherson was allowed to go to America as a steerage passenger; so he sat a moment and watched the little figure with the waterproof hood over its head making its way to where a rough-looking woman was standing, with an immense cotton umbrella over her sun-bonnet and evidently waiting for some one. And so Bessie vanished from Neil's sight, and he saw her no more.
"Back to the hotel," he said to the cabman, who obeyed willingly, while Neil, always on the alert, closed the windows lest he should he seen and recognized.
But the air was close and hot, and when he thought himself out of danger he drew the window down and looked out just in time to meet the eyes of Grey Jerrold who was driving in an opposite direction. There was an exclamation from Grey, a call for both cabmen to stop, and before Neil could collect his senses the two carriages were drawn up side by side and he was shaking hands with Grey through the window.
"So glad I happened to meet you," Grey said. "I wanted to say good-by, for I am off for America."
"America!" Neil repeated, and his lower jaw dropped suddenly, as if he had been seized with paralysis.
"Yes," Grey rejoined. "I sail in the Germanic with my Aunt Lucy. She came down to Liverpool yesterday with some friends. I shall find her at the wharf. I have just arrived in the train from Chester. I was only in London for a day, but I called at your house to see you, and learned that you were out of town, so I left a little note for you. Neil"--and Grey spoke very low, as we do when we speak of the dead--"I have been in Prussia, Austria, and Russia since I left Italy, but I know I ought to have written and told you how sorry I was for--for what happened in Rome. If it had not been for my aunt, I believe I should have gone back and helped you. I--"
Here Grey stopped, for since his interview with Jack Trevellian he had never mentioned Bessie's name to any one, and he could not do so now even to Neil, who, having no idea of the mistake under which Grey was laboring, and supposing he, of course, was referring to Daisy, replied with an indifference which made Grey's flesh creep: "Yes, thanks; they told me how kind you were, and I ought to have written you, but I had so much to see to. I trust I may never go through the like again. Those landlords are perfect swindlers, the whole of them, and ought to be indicted."