Time after time, although she was ignorant of the constant observation I kept upon her, I managed to get close sight of her, and after a time began to doubt whether she really was a shop assistant. Her black coat and skirt was of some cheap but effective material, and the boa about her neck was of the type usually worn by the employees of Westbourne Grove; yet once as she passed, my eyes caught a gleam beneath the sleeve of her coat, and I saw that she wore, only half-concealed, one of those curious New Zealand bracelets of pale green stone which are so shaped upon the wrist that they can never be removed. Solid and circular, it was a strange, almost barbarous-looking ornament and yet very striking, for in one part was a small band of gold, wherein was set a single diamond, the gleam of which had attracted my attention. Now if she were a shop assistant, I argued, she could not sell ribbons and laces with such an ornament upon her wrist. No employer would allow such personal adornment. And as she could not remove it there was doubt that she really was what she appeared to be. It commenced to rain and she put up her umbrella. It was old, and in it were several slits. I was in half a mind to raise my hat, wish her good-evening, and inquire if she were there in response to the advertisement addressed to Nello, yet on reflection I saw that such a movement would be very indiscreet, and that if she were really there as Nello's representative then I could gain more by watching her. So, unnoticed, I stood within the station, my back turned to her, and my head buried in an evening paper. To her I was, I suppose, only an ordinary working-man, and if I had approached her she would have at once snubbed me. Fortunately I so constantly changed my position that she never gave me a look, and was entirely unconscious of being watched. Greater part of the time I stood apart some distance, on the opposite side of the street at the corner of York Place. From the eager way in which she watched every female approaching, I knew that she was waiting for a woman. At last she became convinced that her vigil was in vain. The rain had ceased, she closed her umbrella and entered an omnibus which had pulled up before the station, and an instant afterwards moved on towards the Edgware Road. It passed close to where I was standing on the kerb, and a few moments afterwards I was in a hansom following it at a respectable distance, my head again hidden in a newspaper. Down Edgware Road, past the Marble Arch and along Park Lane we went to Victoria Station, where the dark-eyed girl alighted, and entering the Chatham and Dover terminus passed through the barrier with the return half of a first-class ticket.