“Mr Pradelle, I am alone here, and this visit is an intrusion.”
“Intrusion? Ah, how hard you do keep on me; but I’m patient as a man can be. What a welcome to one who has come to serve you! I am only your brother’s messenger, Miss Louie. He has been and done that business.”
“You know?”
“Of course I know. Harry is not so hard upon me as you are. I have seen him, and he sent me on here with a cab. He wants you to join him.”
“To join him?”
“Yes, at the station. He says it is not safe to come back here, and you are to join him at the waiting-room.”
“He sent that message by you?”
“Yes. It’s all nonsense, of course, for I think he has not so much cause to be alarmed. There is a risk, but he magnifies it. You are ready, so let’s go on at once.”
“Why did not my brother return? There is the landlady to pay.”
“He has commissioned me to do that. I am going to see you both off, and if you’ll only say a kind word to me, Miss Louie, I don’t know but what I’ll come with you.”