“_The time has come, the very hour has struck when deeds most
unforgettable are due._”
--Ben Verulam.
[Illustration: 9355]
UARTER-PAST eight, and no sign of a guest!” I exclaimed.
“You are sure you asked 'em for eight and not eight-thirty?” said Dick.
“Positive; it was on the card. I noticed particularly.”
“Perhaps they've gone to your rooms,” suggested Teddy.
“Scarcely. Some of them do not know my address, and this house was also
engraved upon the card.”
We were sitting round the anteroom fire while Halfred waited in the
dining-room.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he observed, putting his head through the door-way.
“But perhaps they've smelled a rat, like as I do.”
Another quarter of an hour passed, and then we heard the sound of heavy
footsteps on the stairs; it sounded like several people. Then came a
knock. I opened the door and saw the waiter who had shown me in, and
behind him a number of as disreputable-looking fellows as I have ever
met.
[Illustration: 0356]
“Your visitors, sir,” said the waiter, in his mysterious voice, though
with an evident air of surprise, and, I think, of disgust.
“Mine?”
“Yes, sir; Mr. Horleens, they wants.”
“But I am not Mr. Horleens. There is some mistake here.”
I addressed a few questions to one of the men, but he was so abashed at
the well-dressed appearance of myself and my two guests that, muttering
something about “being made a blooming fool of,” the whole party turned
and descended again.
“It was the right word, sir,” said the waiter to me. “Some of 'em was to
ask for Mr. Horleens.”
“What do you make of that?” I exclaimed, when they had all gone.
“They've mistaken the house, o' course,” said Teddy.
“Horleens, Horleens,” repeated Dick, thought-fully. “I have it! They
meant Orleans. They must be some of your gay sportsmen.”
“Of course!” I cried. “That must have been the password. Well, no doubt
they have found the proper door by this time. But I fear, gentlemen,
that we are to have this dinner all to ourselves.”
“Let's eat it anyhow,” said Dick. “I've a twist like a pig's tail.”
This sentiment being heartily applauded by Teddy, I rang for the waiter,
and we sat down to as excellent a dinner as you could wish to taste.
Certainly, whatever miscalculations the Marquis had made, this part of
his programme was successfully arranged and enthusiastically carried
through. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we jested; you would have thought
that the night had nothing more serious in store for any of us. Halfred,
who helped to wait upon us, nearly dropped the dishes more than once
in his efforts to control his mirth at some exuberant sally. It was not
possible to have devised a merrier evening for my last.
“Here's to your guests for not turning up!” cried Teddy. “They'd only
have spoiled the fun.”
“And the average of bottles per man,” added Dick.
“Yes. Thank God I am not making an inflammatory speech to Sir Henry
Horley and the Bishop of Battersea!” I said. “But, my dear friends”--and
here I pulled out my watch--“I fear I shall have to make a little speech
as it is, a farewell oration to you. It is now half-past ten. I leave
you in a few minutes.”
“The devil you do,” said Dick. “Teddy, the monsieur proposes to dismiss
us. What shall we do?”
“The monsieur be blanked!” cried Teddy, using a most unnecessarily
strong expression. “O' course we're coming, too.”
“But I shall not permit--”
“Silence!” said Dick. “Messieurs, let us put on our coats! Halfred, load
that pistol of yours; the expedition is starting.”
No use in protesting. These two faithful comrades hilariously cried down
all resistance, and the four of us set off for the station.
In a remote, half-lit corner of that huge, draughty building, we found
the special train standing; an engine, two carriages, and the great
colored van already mounted upon a truck. The Marquis met me with a
surprised and disappointed look.
“Is this all the aid you bring?” he asked.
“All!” I exclaimed. “I do not know what mistake you have made, but my
guests never appeared.”
“Is that the truth?”
“M. le Marquis!”
“Pardon. I see; there must have been some error. Well, it cannot be
helped now. I, at least, have been more successful; I have got my men.
Who are these two?”
I introduced my two friends, and we walked down the platform. As we
passed the furniture van I started to hear noises proceeding from
inside.
“Do not be alarmed,” said the Marquis. “I have explained that I am
conveying a menagerie.”
We stopped before a first-class compartment. He opened the door and
invited us to enter.
“Do not think me impolite if I myself travel in another carriage,” he
said to me. “I have a companion.”
“M. Hankey?”
“He also is here,” he replied, I thought evasively.
Just before we started, Halfred put his head through our window and
said, with a mysterious grin:
“The furriner's got a lady with him!”
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But he had to run to his own carriage before he had time to add more.
The next moment the engine whistled and the expedition had started.
“I don't quite know what the penalty is for this sort of thing,” said
Dick, as we clanked out over the dark Thames and the constellations of
the Embankment. “Hard labor if we're caught on this side of the channel,
and hanging on the other, I suppose; so cheer up, Teddy!”
At this quite unnecessary exhortation, Teddy forthwith burst into song.
You would have thought that these two young men, travelling in their
evening clothes and laughing gayly, were bound for some ball or
carnival. Yet they knew quite well they were running a very serious risk
for a cause they had no interest in whatever, and that seemed only to
increase their good-humor.
“What soldiers they would make!” I said to myself.
But in the course of an hour or two our talk and laughter ceased, not
that our courage oozed away, but for the prosaic reason that we were
all becoming desperately sleepy. How long we took to make that journey I
cannot say. The lines seemed to be consecrated to goods traffic at that
hour of the night and our train moved by fits and starts, now running
for half an hour, then stopping for it seemed twice as long. At last I
awoke from a doze to find the train apparently entering a station, and
at the same instant Dick started up.
“We must be nearly there,” I said.
“My dear fellow,” he replied, seriously. “Are you really going on with
this mad adventure?”
“I have no choice; but you--”
“Oh, I'm coming with you if you persist. But think twice before it's too
late.”
“Hey!” cried Teddy, starting from his slumbers. “Where are we?”
Dick and I looked at each other, and, seeing that we were resolute, he
smiled and then yawned, while I let down the window and looked out.
Yes, we were entering a station, and in a minute or two more our journey
was at an end.
“There will be a little delay while we get the van off the train and the
horses harnessed,” said the Marquis, coming up to me. “In the mean time
there is some one to whom I wish to present you.”
He led me to his carriage and there I saw a veiled lady sitting. Even
with her veil down I started, and when she raised it I became for the
instant petrified with utter astonishment. It was Kate Kerry!
“I believe you have met this lady,” said the Marquis, in his stateliest
manner, “but not previously as my wife.”
“Your wife!” I exclaimed. “I have, then, the honor of addressing the
Marchioness de la Carrabasse?”
“You have,” said Kate, with a smile and a flash of those dark eyes that
had once thrilled me so.
“We were married yesterday morning,” said the Marquis. “That was the
business I was engaged upon. And now for the moment I leave you; the
general must attend to his command!”
I entered the carriage, and there, from her own lips, I heard the story
of this extraordinary romance. The Marquis, she told me, had obtained
an introduction to her (I did not ask too closely how, but, knowing his
impetuous methods, I guessed what this phrase meant); this had been
just after the end of the mission, and his object at first was to obtain
information about me from one whom (I also guessed) he regarded as
probably my mistress; but in a very short time from playing the detective
he had become the lover; his suit was pressed with irresistible vigor,
and now I beheld the result.
“May I ask a delicate question?” I said. “Yes,” she replied, with all
her old haughty assurance.
“What was it that moved your heart, that so suddenly made you love the
Marquis?”
“He attracted my sympathy.”
“Your sympathy only?”
“And my admiration. He is serving a noble cause.”
Truly, my friend had infected his wife with his own enthusiasm in the
most remarkable way. “Does your uncle know?”
“No.”
“He might not approve of my friend.”
“My husband is a marquis,” she replied, with an air of pride and
satisfaction that seemed to me to throw more than a little light on the
complex motives of this young lady.
“And now you propose to accompany him on this dangerous adventure?”
“Certainly I do! Where else should I be?”
“He is fortunate, indeed,” I said, politely.
Now I understand how my friend F. II had obtained all his information
regarding my movements and my friends and my different escapades, for in
the day's of Plato I had talked most frankly with his fair Marchioness.
In fact, I perceived clearly several things that had been obscure
before.
But our talk was soon interrupted by the return of the happy husband.
“All is ready! Come!” he said.
Undoubtedly, with his eyes burning with the excitement of action, his
effective gestures and distinguished air, his dramatic speech, not to
speak of that little title of marquis, I could well fancy his charming a
girl who delighted in the unusual, and was ready, as her uncle said, to
fill in the picture from her own imagination.
“And so my dethroned divinity is the Marchioness de la Carrabasse!” I
said to myself. “Mon Dieu! I shall be curious to see the offspring of
this remarkable union!”
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