“I will remember it.”
The King’s messenger put on his hat and coat in silence; he was not a man for commonplaces, and his haughty manners prevented them in others. He saluted the two men very abruptly and turned from the room.
Jerome Caryl made no attempt to accompany him: there was a quiet dislike in his stiff bow. As the door closed, he remarked to Sir Perseus:
“Middleton is crazed, I think, to trust that man with such a mission.”
“I do not like him,” was the answer, “but he may be very staunch.”
“He knows everything,” said Jerome Caryl, frowning. “And his credentials are such that I must trust him—but I doubt his discretion, and I wish Middleton could have sent me a man of whom I knew something.”
As Mr. Wedderburn was crossing the dark, outer room he felt a timid touch on his arm; some one fleet and noiseless of foot had overtaken him. It was Delia Featherstonehaugh,—for the moment he had utterly forgotten her.
“Would you do me a favor?” she said panting.
He turned, but it was too dark to see her face.
“Why, tell it me,” he answered.