hands in his and raised them to his lips.
“I came as quickly as I could,” he said. “There was the usual delay, of course, at Marseilles, and the trains on were terrible. So all has ended well.”
Oliver Hilditch, standing by, remained speechless. It seemed for a moment as though his self-control were subjected to a severe strain.
“I had the good fortune,” he interposed, in a low tone, “to be wonderfully defended. Mr. Ledsam here—”
He glanced around. Francis, with some idea of what was coming, obeyed an imaginary summons from the head-porter, touched Andrew Wilmore upon the shoulder, and hastened without a backward glance through the swing-doors. Wilmore turned up his coat-collar and looked doubtfully up at the rain.
“I say, old chap,” he protested, “you don’t really mean to walk?”
Francis thrust his hand through his friend’s arm and wheeled him round into Davies Street.
“I don’t care what the mischief we do, Andrew,” he confided, “but couldn’t you see what was going to happen? Oliver Hilditch was going to introduce me as his preserver to the man who had just arrived!”
“Are you afflicted with modesty, all of a sudden?” Wilmore grumbled.
“No, remorse,” was the terse reply.
CHAPTER V
Indecision had never been one of Francis Ledsam’s faults, but four times during the following day he wrote out a carefully worded telegraphic message to Mrs. Oliver Hilditch, 10 b, Hill Street, regretting his inability to dine that night, and each time he destroyed it. He carried the first message around Richmond golf course with him, intending to dispatch his caddy with it immediately on the conclusion of the round. The fresh air, however, and the concentration required by the game, seemed to dispel the nervous apprehensions with which he had anticipated his visit, and over an aperitif in the club bar he tore the telegram into small pieces and found himself even able to derive a certain half-fearful pleasure from the thought of meeting again the woman who, together with her terrible story, had never for one moment been out of his thoughts. Andrew Wilmore, who had observed his action, spoke of it as they settled down to lunch.
“So you are going to keep your engagement tonight, Francis?” he observed.
The latter nodded.
“After all, why not?” he asked, a little defiantly. “It ought to be interesting.”
“Well, there’s nothing of the sordid criminal, at any rate, about Oliver Hilditch,” Wilmore declared. “Neither, if one comes to think of it, does his wife appear to be the prototype of suffering virtue. I wonder if you are wise to go, Francis?”
“Why not?” the man who had asked himself that question a dozen times already, demanded.
“Because,” Wilmore replied coolly, “underneath that steely hardness of manner for which your profession is responsible, you have a vein of sentiment, of chivalrous sentiment, I should say, which some day or other is bound to get you into trouble. The woman is beautiful enough to turn any one’s head. As a matter of fact, I believe that you are more than half in love with her already.”
Francis Ledsam sat where the sunlight fell upon his strong, forceful face, shone, too, upon the table with its simple but pleasant appointments, upon the tankard of beer by his side, upon the plate of roast beef to which he was already doing ample justice. He laughed with the easy confidence of a man awakened from some haunting nightmare, relieved to find his feet once more firm upon the ground.
“I have been a fool to take the whole matter so seriously, Andrew,” he declared. “I expect to walk back to Clarges Street to-night, disillusioned. The man will probably present me with a gold pencil-case, and the woman—”
“Well, what about the woman?” Wilmore asked, after a brief pause.
“Oh, I don’t know!” Francis declared, a little impatiently. “The woman is the mystery, of course. Probably my brain was a little over-excited when I came out of Court, and what I imagined to be an epic was nothing more than a tissue of exaggerations from a disappointed wife. I’m sure I’m doing the right thing to go there…. What about a four-ball this afternoon, Andrew?”
The four-ball match was played and won in normal fashion. The two men returned to town together afterwards, Wilmore to the club and Francis to his rooms in Clarges Street to prepare for dinner. At a few minutes to eight he rang the bell of number 10 b, Hill Street, and found his host and hostess awaiting him in the small drawing-room into which he was ushered. It seemed to him that the woman, still colourless, again marvellously gowned, greeted him coldly. His host, however, was almost too effusive. There was no other guest, but the prompt announcement of dinner dispelled what might have been a few moments of embarrassment after Oliver Hilditch’s almost too cordial greeting. The woman laid her fingers upon her guest’s coat-sleeve. The trio crossed the little hall almost in silence.
Dinner was served in a small white Georgian dining-room, with every appurtenance of almost Sybaritic luxury. The only light in the room was thrown upon the table by two purple-shaded electric lamps, and the servants who waited seemed to pass backwards and forwards like shadows in some mysterious twilight—even the faces of the three diners themselves were out of the little pool of light until they leaned forward. The dinner was chosen with taste and restraint, the wines were not only costly but rare. A watchful butler, attended now and then by a trim parlour-maid, superintended the service. Only once, when she ordered a bowl of flowers removed from the table, did their mistress address either of them. Conversation after the first few amenities speedily became almost a monologue. One man talked whilst the others listened, and the man who talked was Oliver Hilditch. He possessed the rare gift of imparting colour and actuality in a few phrases to the strange places of which he spoke, of bringing the very thrill of strange happenings into the shadowy room. It seemed that there was scarcely a country of the world which he had not visited, a country, that is to say, where men congregate, for he admitted from the first that he was a city worshipper, that the empty places possessed no charm for him.
“I am not even a sportsman,” he confessed once, half apologetically, in reply to a question from his guest. “I have passed down the great rivers of the world without a thought of salmon, and I have driven through the forest lands and across the mountains behind a giant locomotive, without a thought of the beasts which might be lurking there, waiting to be killed. My only desire has been to reach the next place where men and women were.”
“Irrespective of nationality?” Francis queried.
“Absolutely. I have never minded much of what race—I have the trick of tongues rather strangely developed—but I like the feeling of human beings around me. I like the smell and sound and atmosphere of a great city. Then all my senses are awake, but life becomes almost turgid in my veins during the dreary hours of passing from one place to another.”
“Do you rule out scenery as well as sport from amongst the joys of travel?” Francis enquired.
“I am ashamed to make such a confession,” his host answered, “but I have never lingered for a single unnecessary moment to look at the most wonderful landscape in the world. On the other hand, I have lounged for hours in the narrowest streets of Pekin, in the markets
