The Lunatic at Large | Page 9

sheltered walk that ran underneath the high, glass-decked outer wall. It was a sunny winter afternoon. The boughs were stripped, and the leaves lay littered on the walk or flickered and stirred through the grass. In this spot the high trees stood so close and the bare branches were so thick that there was still an air of quiet and seclusion where he paced and smoked. Every now and then he stopped and listened and looked at his watch, and as he walked backwards and forwards an amused smile would come and go.
All at once he heard something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller note tied to the stems.
"An uncommonly happy idea," he said to himself, looking at the missive with the air of one versed in these matters. Then he leisurely proceeded to unfold and read the note.
"To my friend," he read, "if I may call you a friend, since I have known you only such a short time--may I? This is just to express my sympathy, and although I cannot express it well, still perhaps you will forgive my feeble effort!!"
At this point, just as he was regarding the double mark of exclamation with reminiscent entertainment, a plaintive voice from the other side of the wall cried in a stage whisper, "Have you got it?"
Mr Beveridge composed his face, and heaving his shoulders to his ears in the effort, gave vent to a prodigious sigh.
"A million thanks, my fairest and kindest of friends," he answered in the same tone. "I read it now: I drink it in, I----"
He kissed the back of his hand loudly two or three times, sighed again, and continued his reading.
"I wish I could help you," it ran, "but I am afraid I cannot, as the world is so censorious, is it not? So you must accept a friend's sympathy if it does not seem to you too bold and forward of her!!! Perhaps we may meet again, as I sometimes go to Clankwood. Au revoir.--Your sympathetic well-wisher. A. ��. F."
He folded it up and put it in his waistcoat-pocket, then he exclaimed in an audible aside, his voice shaking with the most affecting thrill, "Perhaps we may meet again! Only perhaps! O Alicia!" And then dropping again into a stage whisper, he asked, "Are you still there, Lady Alicia?"
A timorous voice replied, "Yes, Mr Fortescue. But I really must go now!"
"Now? So soon?"
"I have stayed too long already."
"'Tis better to have stayed too long than never to wear stays at all," replied Mr Beveridge.
There was no response for a moment. Then a low voice, a little hurt and a good deal puzzled, asked with evident hesitation, "What--what did you say, Mr Fortescue?"
"I said that Lady Alicia's stay cannot be too long," he answered, softly.
"But--but what good can I be?"
"The good you cannot help being."
There was another moment's pause, then the voice whispered, "I don't quite understand you."
"My Alicia understands me not!" Mr Beveridge soliloquised in another audible aside. Aloud, or rather in a little lower tone, he answered, "I am friendless, poor, and imprisoned. What is the good in your staying? Ah, Lady Alicia! But why should I detain you? Go, fair friend! Go and forget poor Francis Beveridge!"
There came a soft, surprised answer, "Francis Beveridge?"
"Alas! you have guessed my secret. Yes, that is the name of the unhappiest of mortals."
As he spoke these melancholy words he threw away the stump of his cigar, took another from his case, and bit off the end.
The voice replied, "I shall remember it--among my friends."
Mr Beveridge struck a match.
"H'sh! Whatever is that?" cried the voice in alarm.
"A heart breaking," he replied, lighting his cigar.
"Don't talk like that," said the voice. "It--it distresses me." There was a break in the voice.
"And, alas! between distress and consolation there are fifteen perpendicular feet of stone and mortar and the relics of twelve hundred bottles of Bass," he replied.
"Perhaps,"--the voice hesitated--"perhaps we may see each other some day."
"Say to-morrow at four o'clock," he suggested, pertinently. "If you could manage to be passing up the drive at that hour."
There was another pause.
"Perhaps----" the voice began.
At that moment he heard the sharp crack of a branch behind him, and turning instantly he spied the uncompromising countenance of Moggridge peering round a tree about twenty paces distant. Lack of presence of mind and quick decision were not amongst Mr Beveridge's failings. He struck a theatrical attitude at once, and began in a loud voice, gazing up at the tops of the trees, "He comes! A stranger comes! Yes, my fair friend, we may meet