'I beg your pardon,' said the traveller, opening his window, and addressing Rob, 'but in the darkness I mistook you for Colonel Abinger.'
'We are on our way to the castle,' said Walsh, stepping forward.
'Ah, then,' said the stranger, 'perhaps you will give me your company for the short distance we have still to go?'
There was a fine courtesy in his manner that made the reporters feel their own deficiencies, yet Rob thought the stranger repented his offer as soon as it was made. Walsh had his hand on the door, but Rob said—
'We are going to Dome Castle as reporters.'
'Oh!' said the stranger. Then he bowed graciously, and pulled up the window. The carriage rumbled on, leaving the reporters looking at each other. Rob laughed. For the first time in his life the advantage a handsome man has over a plain one had struck him. He had only once seen such a face before, and that was in marble in the Silchester Art Museum. This man looked thirty years of age, but there was not a line on his broad white brow. The face was magnificently classic, from the strong Roman nose to the firm chin. The eyes, too beautiful almost for his sex, were brown and wistful, of the kind that droop in disappointment oftener than they blaze with anger. All the hair on his face was a heavy drooping moustache that almost hid his mouth.
Walsh shook his fist at this insult to the Press.
'It is the baronet I spoke of to you,' he said. 'I forget who he is; indeed, I rather think he travelled incognito when he was here last. I don't understand what he is doing here.'
'Why, I should say this is just the place where he would be if he is to marry Miss Abinger.'
'That was an old story,' said Walsh. 'If there ever was an engagement it was broken off. Besides, if he had been expected we should have known of it at the Argus.'