“There is something strangely amiss,” he thought; “but she will be doubly, trebly shielded from the slightest risk of harm.”
Captain Desfrayne—his troubled gaze still on the open parchment, which he regarded as if it were his death-warrant—absolutely started when Mr. Amberley addressed him, after a short silence, inviting him to partake of some wine, which magically appeared from a dim, dusty-looking nook.
After a little desultory conversation, having arranged the hour of meeting and other necessary details, Frank Amberley observed, an odd smile lurking at the corners of his handsome mouth:
“This is not the first time we have met, though you have apparently forgotten me.”
The captain looked at him.
“I really do not remember you,” he said, with a puzzled expression.
“You do not remember a certain moonlight night in Turin, when you shot a bandit dead, as his dagger was within five or six inches of an Englishman’s throat? Nor an excursion which took place some weeks previously, when you met the same compatriot in a diligence—myself, in fact? We wrote down one another’s names, and were going to swear an eternal friendship, when you were abruptly obliged to quit the city, in consequence of some business call, or regimental duties.”
“The circumstances have by no means escaped my memory,” answered Captain Desfrayne, in an indefinable tone; “though I should have scarcely recognized you. Since then you have a little altered.”
Frank Amberley, laughingly, stroked the silken beard, which had certainly greatly changed his aspect. But the coldness of the formerly open, frank-hearted man, whom he had so liked three or four years ago, struck him with deepened suspicion that something was amiss.
“I am glad to have met you,” he said. “I should be very pleased if you could dine with me this evening at the ‘London.’ My people are going out this evening, so I am compelled to make shift as I best can, and I don’t relish dining alone at home.”