“Ah, it’s you? I’m afraid, John, you took the wrong umbrella that time!”
“I did,” he impressively returned, with a rueful shake of the head; and I saw him no more.
A WHITE SAVAGE.
The woman had a queer and almost crazed look; was miserably clad, with no bonnet on her head, and her hair covered with the “fluff” which flies about factories and covers the workers. I am not sure if she had any covering on her feet; if she had, it must have been some soft material which gave out no more noise than her bare soles would have done.
Added to this, she smelled strongly of whisky, though she was not in any way intoxicated. She had come into the Office at the breakfast hour, and patiently waited till I appeared, without enlightening any one as to her business. “No one but Mr McGovan was of any use to her,” she said; and when I appeared and heard her begin her strange story I soon thought that I should be of no use to her either. Her statements were so wild and improbable, and her delivery so incoherent, that I speedily decided that if I was not conversing with a mad woman I was at least beside one suffering from delirium tremens. Her age seemed to be about twenty-five, and she was by no means bad looking, had she not been such a miserable wreck.
“I want you to help me to hunt for my man,” she said, with perfect self-possession. “My name is Janet Hanford, and I’m married—maybe you’ll mind the name.”
I thought for a little—or appeared to do so—and then told her that she had the advantage of me, for I did not remember the name.
“Your husband has run away from you, then?” I remarked, secretly not at all surprised at his action.
“No, not that,” she answered, and it was then that I began to doubt her sanity. “It was not running away. They told me he was dead and buried, and I believed them; but I saw him to-day riding along in a carriage with a grand lady—a new wife, as I suppose—and I want you to hunt him out. I’m not so good as I should be, but I’m still his wife, surely?”
“Surely,” I echoed, thinking it best to humour the maniac.