I take one of the candles and light up each corner of the room in succession.
“You saw him!” she says, in trembling hurry, sitting up and clenching her hands together. “I know you did—I pointed him out to you—you cannot say that it was a dream this time.”
“I saw two or three ordinary looking men as we drove up,” I answer, in a commonplace, matter-of-fact tone. “I did not notice anything remarkable about any of them; you know the fact is, darling, that you have had nothing to eat all day, nothing but a biscuit, and you are over-wrought, and fancy things.”
“Fancy!” echoes she, with strong irritation. “How you talk! Was I ever one to fancy things? I tell you that as sure as I sit here—as sure as you stand there—I saw him—him—the man I saw in my dream, if it was a dream. There was not a hair’s breadth of difference between them—and he was looking at me—looking——”
She breaks off into hysterical sobbing.
“My dear child!” say I, thoroughly alarmed, and yet half angry, “for God’s sake do not work yourself up into a fever: wait till to-morrow, and we will find out who he is, and all about him; you yourself will laugh when we discover that he is some harmless bagman.”
“Why not now?” she says, nervously; “why cannot you find out now—this minute?”
“Impossible! Everybody is in bed! Wait till to-morrow, and all will be cleared up.”
The morrow comes, and I go about the hotel, inquiring. The house is so full, and the data I have to go upon are so small, that for some time I have great difficulty in making it understood to whom I am alluding. At length one waiter seems to comprehend.
“A tall and dark gentleman, with a pronounced and very peculiar nose? Yes; there has been such a one, certainly, in the hotel, but he left at ‘grand matin’ this morning; he remained only one night.”