“Not the least, sir, and thank you,” replied Stelfox, moving aside from the door as somebody knocked at it from the outside.
Then Mr. Graham-Shute put his head in.
“Any admission?” said he, and he brought the rest of himself inside without waiting for an answer. “It’s d—d cold in these parts, Bradfield, and you keep your horses too fat. We’ve been a week on the road back from those d—d ruins. I’m frozen to death. There was only one comfort, and that was that my little Maudie’s jaw got too stiff to move. So we had a heavenly spell of silence on the way back.”
He walked to the fire, and began slowly taking off his silk muffler, his gloves, and his overcoat in the cheery warmth.
Stelfox had quietly withdrawn.
“By-the-bye, Bradfield,” went on Mr. Graham-Shute, agitating his jaw violently, as if under the impression that in the Arctic atmosphere outside something had gone wrong with it, “you’ll never guess who we met down in the town just now, looking about for you.”
John Bradfield’s back was turned to his cousin, who might otherwise have seen that the approaching communication was no surprise to him. He was expected to show curiosity, however, so he asked:
“Well, who was it?”
“Why, your old pal, Alfred Marrable, who went out to Australia with you over thirty years ago. He doesn’t seem to have done as well out there as you did, by the looks of him. I knew him in a moment, dark as it was, by that odd limp in his walk. So I stopped the carriage and spoke to him. It appears he has come down here on purpose to see you. So I put him on the road. We were full, or I would have given him a lift.”