Two of the police had now arrived, and were turning their lanterns on the party. The strong white light glared full on Miss Algernon's face and figure, so like Lady Bearwarden's but yet to the husband's bewildered senses so surely not his wife's.
He shook all over. His face, though flushed a moment ago, turned deadly pale. He clutched Dick's shoulder, and his voice came dry and husky, while he gasped--
"What is it, Stanmore? Speak, man, for the love of heaven. What does it all mean?"
Then came question and answer; clearer, fuller, more fluent with every sentence. And so the explanation went on: how some enemy had roused his worst suspicions; how Lord Bearwarden, deceived by the extraordinary likeness which he could not but acknowledge even now, had been satisfied he saw Dick Stanmore with Maud in a hansom cab; how he had left his home in consequence, and sent that hostile message to Dick, which had so puzzled that gallant, open-hearted gentleman; how a certain letter from Lady Bearwarden, addressed to Mr. Stanmore, and forwarded to her husband, had but confirmed his suspicions; and how, at last, an anonymous communication to the same lady, falling accidentally into his hands, had mystified him completely, and made him resolve to watch and follow her at the hour named, with a desperate hope that something might be revealed to alleviate his sufferings, to give him more certainty of action and future guidance.
"I was horribly cut up, I don't mind confessing it," said Lord Bearwarden, with his kindly grasp still on Dick's shoulder. "And I waited there, outside my own house, like some d----d poaching thief. It seemed so hard I couldn't go in and see her just once more! Presently, out she came, as I thought, and I followed, very craftily, and not too near for fear she should look round. She didn't, though, but walked straight on; and when I saw the cab waiting, and she stopped as if she meant to get in, I couldn't tell what to make of it at all."
"I was only just in time. I came that last few yards with a rush, I give you my word! And I made a grab at the driver, thinking the best chance was to stop the conveyance at once, or if I couldn't do that, take a free passage with the rest of them. She wasn't going of her own accord, I felt sure. That villain of a lawyer struggled hard. I didn't think he'd been so good a man. I wasn't at all sorry to see you fellows coming up. It was two to one, you know, and I do believe, if it hadn't been for the pistol, they might have got clear off. It shot the worst customer of the two, that poor fellow behind us, right through the body. Under my arm, I should think, for I got a very nasty one on the shoulder just as the smoke flew in my face. It has squared his accounts, I fancy. But here we are at my house. Let's get him in, and then you must introduce me properly to this young lady, whose acquaintance I have made in such an unusual manner."
The strange procession had, indeed, arrived at Lord Bearwarden's residence. It consisted of the proprietor himself, whose right arm was now completely disabled, but who gesticulated forcibly with his left; of Dick Stanmore and Nina, listening to his lordship with the utmost deference and attention; of Jim's senseless body, carried by Simon Perkins and one policeman, while Tom Ryfe, in close custody of the other, brought up the rear.
As they entered the hall, Lady Bearwarden's pale, astonished face was seen looking over the banisters. Dorothea, too, creeping down-stairs, with some vague idea of escaping from this friendly refuge, and finding her way back, perhaps, to the cool shining Serpentine, came full upon the group at the moment when Jim was laid tenderly down by his bearers, and the policeman whispered audibly to his comrade that, even if the doctor were in the next street now, he would come too late!
She ran forward with a wild, despairing cry. She flung herself down by the long, limp, helpless figure. She raised the drooping head with its matted locks, its fixed, white, rigid face, and pressed it hard against her bosom--hard to her wayward, ignorant, warped, but loving heart.
"Speak to me, Jim!" she moaned once more, rocking backwards and forwards in her fierce agony. "Speak to me, deary! You'll never speak again. O! why did they stop me to-day? It's cruel--cruel! Why did they stop me? We'd have been together before now!"