In despatching the missive he said, "I can promise that if this note is delivered to Mrs. Arnot at once, the bearer shall be well paid."
Moments seemed hours while he waited for an answer. Suppose the letter was not delivered—suppose Mrs. Arnot was absent. A hundred miserable conjectures flitted through his mind; but his confidence in his friend was such that even his morbid fear did not suggest that she would not come.
The lady was at the dinner-table when the note was handed to her, and after reading it she rose hastily and excused herself.
"Where are you going?" asked her husband sharply.
"A person in trouble has sent for me."
"Well, unless the person is in the midst of a surgical operation, he, she, or it, whichever this person may be, can wait till you finish your dinner."
"I am going to visit Egbert Haldane," said Mrs. Arnot quietly. "Jane, please tell Michael to come round with the carriage immediately."
"You visit the city prison at this hour! Now I protest. The young rake probably has the delirium tremens. Send our physician rather, if some one must go, though leaving him to the jailer and a strait-jacket would be better still."
"Please excuse me," answered his wife, with her hand on the door-knob; "you forget my relations to Mrs. Haldane; her son has sent for me."
"'Her relations to Mrs. Haldane!' As if she were not always at the beck and call of every beggar and criminal in town! I do wish I had a wife who was too much of a lady to have anything to do with this low scum."