It is better to take the stimulant of tea than the more usual brandy and soda. Hamlyn was a strong teetotaller, and that counted to his credit at a moment like this. For the man had obviously been through an unnerving experience. He was not his ready and impudent self.
The tea was brought. It revived him.
"Well!" he said in a low voice, "I don't want to go through many scenes like that again, Gussie! She's getting worse and worse. Her brain can't last much longer if she goes on like this! However, I managed to calm her down. She's going off to sleep now. I told her I'd wake Hornham up in a few days—and I'll have to do it, what's more!"
"Did you get a cheque?" said the practical Gussie.
"Yes," said Mr. Hamlyn in a slightly more relieved voice. "She gave me a couple of hundred in the end. At heart, she's devoted to the cause of Protestant Truth. But she's getting horribly restive, my dear. I'm sorry for her. She's a wreck of what she used to be—but she's a wreck that wants a lot of salvage!"
The colour came back into the plump, clean-shaven face as the tea did its work.
"I forgot, my dear," he said; "I brought you a box of chocolates. It clean went out of my 'ead," he waved an exhausted hand towards his small brown leather bag, which stood on the table between a plaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa and a massive volume entitled Every Young Lady's Vade Mecum.
Gussie smiled her thanks and opened the bag, while Mr. Hamlyn poured out another cup of tea.
Gussie felt in the bag. It was full of papers, but there were two parcels there. She took them out. They were of much the same size. Each was neatly tied up in white paper.
She pulled the string from one of them. A number of thin semi-transparent white wafers fell out upon the table.