"_You_ must remember that afternoon, Lucy. When I ran over to old Coney's for Mrs. Todhetley, you were there, you know; and I told you all about the earrings and the detective officer, then making his dinner of cold beef at our house while he waited for the mother to come home and produce the earring. Don't you remember? You were just going back to Worcester." Still she said not a word. "Lucy, I think it is the same man. Although his black moustache is gone, I feel sure it is he. The face and the tall slender figure are just like his." "How singular!" she exclaimed, in a low tone to herself. "How strangely things come about!" "But _is_ it Eccles?" "Johnny Ludlow," she said, catching my arm, and speaking in an excited, breathless whisper, "if you were to bring harm on me--that is, on him or on my husband through me, I should pray to die." "But you need not be afraid. Goodness me, Lucy! don't you know that I wouldn't bring harm on any one in the world, least of all on you? Why, you said to me this morning that I was true as steel." "Yes, yes," she said, bursting into tears. "We have always been good friends, have we not. Johnny, since you, a little mite of a child in a tunic and turned-down frill, came to see me one day at school, a nearly grown-up young lady, and wanted to leave me your bright sixpence to buy gingerbread? Oh, Johnny, if all people were only as loyal and true-hearted as you are!" "Then, Lucy, why need you doubt me?" "Do you not see the shadows of those leaves playing on the ground cast by the light of that gas-lamp?" she asked. "Just as many shadows, dark as those, lie in the path of my life. They have taught me to fear an enemy where I ought to look for a friend; they have taught me that life is so full of unexpected windings and turnings, that we know not one minute what new fear the next may bring forth." "Well, Lucy, you need not fear me. I have promised you to say nothing of having met you here; and I will say nothing, or of what you tell me." "Promise it me again, Johnny. Faithfully." Just a shade of vexation crossed me that she should think it needful to reiterate this; but I would not let my face or voice betray it. "I promise it again, Lucy. Faithfully and truly."