"
She had steadily evaded the pleading glance of Carroll, and though
her bright face and unblemished toilet showed the inefficiency of
her excuse, it was evident that her wish to be alone was genuine
and without coquetry. They could only lift their hats and turn
regretfully away.
As the red cap of the young officer disappeared amidst the
evergreen foliage, the young woman uttered a faint sigh, which she
repeated a moment after as a slight nervous yawn. Then she opened
and shut her fan once or twice, striking the sticks against her
little pale palm, and then, gathering the lace under her oval chin
with one hand, and catching her fan and skirt with the other, bent
her head and dipped into the bushes. She came out on the other
side near a low fence, that separated the park from a narrow lane
which communicated with the high road beyond. As she neared the
fence, a slinking figure limped along the lane before her. It was
the tramp of the early morning.
They raised their heads at the same moment and their eyes met. The
tramp, in that clearer light, showed a spare, but bent figure,
roughly clad in a miner's shirt and canvas trousers, splashed and
streaked with soil, and half hidden in a ragged blue cast-off army
overcoat lazily hanging from one shoulder. His thin sun-burnt face
was not without a certain sullen, suspicious intelligence, and a
look of half-sneering defiance. He stopped, as a startled, surly
animal might have stopped at some unusual object, but did not
exhibit any other discomposure.
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