‘Have I seen whom?’
‘Marjorie Lindon!’
‘Marjorie Lindon?’
Lessingham paused. He was evidently asking himself what the inquiry meant.
‘I have not seen Miss Lindon since last night. Why do you ask?’
‘Then Heaven help us!—As I’m a living man I believe he, she, or it has got her!’
His words were incomprehensible enough to stand in copious need of explanation,—as Mr Lessingham plainly thought.
‘What is it that you mean, sir?’
‘What I say,—I believe that that Oriental friend of yours has got her in her clutches,—if it is a “her;” goodness alone knows what the infernal conjurer’s real sex may be.’
‘Atherton!—Explain yourself!’