“A gentleman to see you, sir; very important.”
“Mr Wilton?” cried Jenny.
“No, ma’am, a strange gentleman,” said the girl. “Someone very bad.”
Leigh exhaled his pent-up breath with a sigh of relief, and went quickly down to where his visitor was waiting, looking wild and ghastly.
Garstang!—the man he had been watching for months without result, but who looked at him as one whom he had never met before.
“Will you come with me directly?” he cried. “My house—only in the next street. I’d better tell you at once, so that you may bring some antidote with you. I need not explain—a young lady—my wife—a foolish quarrel—a little jealousy—and she has taken some of that new sedative, Xyrania—a poisonous dose, I fear.”
“A young lady—my wife,” rang in Leigh’s ears like the death knell of all hopes. Then he was right: this man had carried her off with her consent, and it had come to this.
“Do you not hear me, sir?” cried Garstang; “Mr— I don’t know your name; I came to the first red lamp. You are a doctor?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” cried Leigh, hastily.
“Then, for God’s sake, come on before it is too late!”