“Blencarn Fell,
“I will be at home this afternoon at three o’clock. I must see you, without fail, at that hour.
“Klein.”
Leloir, the valet, was in the bath-room stropping a razor, when he heard a stifled cry from the bedroom adjoining; running in, he found his master standing on the floor, holding the bedpost with one hand, whilst with the other he held the letter we have just read.
His face was of that peculiar grey we associate with damp walls, mildew, ruin. He was shaking in every member, and the bed shook, as if the terror of the man, or his rage, had diffused itself even into the inanimate.
Leloir withdrew; he had too intimate a knowledge of his master to intrude upon him when he was in one of his takings.
I have said that when Gyde lost himself in one of his attacks of anger, a devil stepped forth and was seen. Speaking less hyperbolically, the man became a ravening beast, and he would as soon have struck Leloir to the ground, or anyone else, indeed, when in one of these attacks, as not.
Now, left to himself, with nothing to vent his anger upon, the attack left him without an explosion, the shaking of the bed ceased, he called his man to him, ordered his bath to be prepared, and whilst this was being done, he examined the envelope in which the letter had arrived.
It bore the postmark “Skirwith,” and in the corner was written the word “Local.”
It had evidently been posted at the village of Skirwith some time on the day before, though the office stamp was half obliterated and quite useless as an indication of the date.