It came so unexpectedly that I was startled." Fanny, as she said this, did not meet her father's gaze, but let her eyes rest upon the ground.
"Are you going to remain here ?" asked Mr.Markland.
"I came to spend a little while alone in this sweet place, but I will go back to the house if you wish it," she replied.
"Perhaps you had better do so.

I saw a strange man between this and the main road, and he seemed as if he desired to avoid observation." Fanny started, and looked up, with an expression of fear, into her father's face.

The origin of that look Mr.Markland did not rightly conjecture.

She arose at once, and said-- "Let us go home." But few words passed between father and daughter on the way, and their brief intercourse was marked by a singular embarrassment on both sides.
How little suspicion of the real truth was in the mind of Mr.
Markland! Nothing was farther from his thoughts than the idea that Fanny had just received a letter from Mr.Lyon, and that the man he had seen was the messenger by whom the missive had been conveyed to the summer-house.

A minute earlier, and that letter would have come into his hands.