She then drew closer to the table near which she stood and, turning her back to me, bent her head lower over the collection of toys and more particularly over the small object the girl had attempted to explain.

She took it again and, after a moment, with her face well averted, made an odd motion of her arms and a significant little duck of her head.

These slight signs, singular as it may appear, produced in my bosom an agitation so great that I failed to notice Lord Iffield's whereabouts.

He had rejoined her; he was close upon her before I knew it or before she knew it herself.

I felt at that instant the strangest of all promptings: if it could have operated more rapidly it would have caused me to dash between them in some such manner as to give Flora a caution.