Chapter 45

"Good evening," I replied, and rode away, feeling strangely puzzled and interested in this girl, by her beauty, grace, and singular manner. At the village inn, the signboard of which, I may mention by the way, actually bears the head of King Ethelbert, whose spirit seems somehow to hover still about his Anglo-Saxon _ham_ of the Reculvers, I drew up on pretence of obtaining a light for my cigar, but in reality to make some inquiry concerning the pretty enigma who dwelt in the cottage on the Margate-road. Just as I r…