"Yes, sir; I expect it is fancy. For all that, I feel perplexed. The woman's voice and manner seem to strike a chord in my memory as much as her face does."
"Captain Heriot, sir."
Sitting one evening in my room at dusk in the summer weather, the window open to the opposite wall and to the side view of the Thames, waiting for Lake to come in, Watts had thus interrupted me to show in Tom Heriot. I started up and grasped his hands. He was a handsome young fellow, with the open manners that had charmed the world in the days gone by, and charmed it still.
"Charley, boy! It is good to see you."
"Ay, and to see you, Tom. Are you staying in London?"
"Why, we have been here for days! What a fellow you are, not to know that we are now quartered here. Don't you read the newspapers? It used to be said, you remember, that young Charley lived in a wood."
I laughed. "And how are things with you, Tom?"
"Rather down; have been for a long time; getting badder and badder."
My heart gave a thump. In spite of his laughing air and bright smile, I feared it might be too true.