“And who is Mr. Richard?” asked Mrs. Abercarne.
The woman did not immediately answer. During the short pause which succeeded the lady’s question, the study door was opened suddenly, and Mr. Bradfield came out, looking very angry.
“Now, haven’t I told you not to make a mystery about Mr. Richard?” said he sharply to the housemaid. “What do you mean by frightening these poor ladies out of their wits with your mysterious nods and winks? You and Stelfox, the pair of you? Why can’t you answer a simple question straightforwardly, and have done with it?”
The housemaid remained silent, and looked down on the floor.
“I thought, sir—I thought, perhaps, the ladies might be alarmed——” she began.
“Alarmed!” echoed Mr. Bradfield impatiently. “And who knows it better than yourself that there is nothing to be alarmed about?” Dismissing the woman with a wave of the hand, he turned to the ladies. “It is only a poor young lad, the son of an old clerk of mine. He is not quite as bright as he might be, poor fellow! but I can’t bear to send him to a home or an asylum, or anything of that sort. I should never feel sure how they were treating him. But he is harmless, I assure you. Perfectly, entirely harmless.”
Mrs. Abercarne professed herself completely satisfied with this explanation, and affected, out of courtesy, to applaud Mr. Bradfield’s humanity in keeping him under his own roof. But when she and her daughter were alone again, safe in their own room, the elderly lady turned the key hastily, and confided her fears to her daughter in a tremulous whisper.
“It’s all very well for Mr. Bradfield to say this lunatic’s harmless,” she said, close to her daughter’s ear, “but I don’t believe it. If he were harmless, why should he be kept in rooms by himself, and be locked in? No, Chris; depend upon it, he’s a dangerous lunatic, and that man who rushed out is his keeper. He had been struggling with him; we heard him. And I don’t intend to remain under the same roof with a raving madman for another night.”