“False friend!” thundered the Baron.
“My dear Baron!” said Mr Bunker, mildly, “whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you’d only left it all to me——”
“Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!” And with that the infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.
As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.
She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.
“I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day [pg 161] through the dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave.”
“I am not surprised,” he replied.
“Then it was false?”
“As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn’t happen to be mine.”
“Were you ever in the Church?”