It was that of a woman, who seemingly
carried a bulky bag or parcel.
One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers
in man which man, in modern times, neglects or knows not how to
develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting
this lonely traveller who travelled at an hour so strange. With no
definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack and
walked briskly out of the house and across the common in a direction
which I thought would enable me to head off the woman.
I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and
with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon
her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had
attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.
She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common
black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the
dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white, and I
perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside
her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that
looked like a small shrimping-net, I stepped around the bush, crossed
silently the intervening patch of grass and stood beside her.
A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the
secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour
of the Orient was in that subtle essence, and I only knew one woman
who used it.
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