"Patience!" he answered, and made his escape.
Lancaster, pencil in hand, was seated at his writing-table. On his retiral from his business in South Africa he had indulged dreams of a quiet room at home and the peaceful companionship of books, and he had got the length of providing the nucleus of a library. But his income, though large, had never been equal to the varied demands upon it, and the room had become simply a chamber wherein he escaped the irritations of society only to suffer the torments of secret anxieties, building up futile schemes for his salvation, striving to extract hope from vain calculations.
At the entrance of Bullard he lifted his head with a start, and into his eyes came the question—"What new terror are you going to spring upon me now?"
"Glad to see you are better," Bullard remarked, drawing a chair to the table and seating himself. "I didn't intend to trouble you to-night, but something arrived by the late afternoon delivery which I thought would interest you. No need to be nervy. It's nothing to upset you." He threw a bundle of notes and a registered envelope on the table. "Your five hundred comes back to you, after all."
Lancaster eyed the notes, then took up the envelope and drew out a sheet of paper of poor quality, bearing a few lines in a school-boyish hand.
"GREY HOUSE, LOCH LONG.
"3/11/13.
"Sir,—Herewith the sum of £990 which I accepted from you the other night owing to a misunderstanding. Without apologies for doubting your honesty—Yours truly,
"J. CAW."
Lancaster drew a long breath. "So he was fooling us, Bullard."