"Who are you, and what do you want here?" I asked in none too gracious a tone, as I frowned at him.
"Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell—you are Ferdinand Carbonnell?"—he repeated the name with a kind of relish—"I could not resist coming. I could not resist the desire to speak to you, to stand face to face with you, to take your hand. I have done wrong, I know; but I shall throw myself on your mercy. I am leaving again to-night; but I could not go without seeing you."
My former impression of him seemed to be confirmed. The man was a lunatic, or at least an eccentric; and a word or two to humour him would do no harm.
"You have been following me; may I ask why?" I asked, in a less abrupt tone.
"I heard your name mentioned at the house where I saw you yesterday. The friend who mentioned it knew nothing; but I knew; and when I heard you were in the house, Senor, do you think I could leave without a sight of you? Ah, Mother of God!"
I was rolling myself a cigarette with a half smile of amusement at the man's eccentricity when a thought occurred to me. I stopped in the act, and looked at him sharply and questioningly. The thought had changed my point of view suddenly, and instead of amusement my feeling was now one of some uneasiness.
"Just be good enough to tell me exactly what you mean; and be very explicit, if you please," I said.
"I am from Saragossa, Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell, and my name is Vidal de Pelayo," he answered, in a tone and manner of intense significance. There was purpose, meaning, and pregnant earnestness in the answer, but no eccentricity.
"I don't care if you are from Timbuctoo and your name is the Archangel Gabriel. What do you mean?" I cried, testily.
The manner of his answer was a further surprise. He plunged his hand somewhere into the deepest recesses of his clothes and brought out a small, folded paper, from which he took a slip of parchment, and handed it to me without a word.