"Is that coals?" said one, huddling near the fire, in a hushed voice, as who should say—Might the Gods relent?—But no full scuttle bumped the panels as Gerald put in his head.
"Wanted," he said, and grinned.
Miss Robinson gave one gasp, half in fright, half triumphant, and fled out of the room, shutting the door with care.
Then, for a moment, cowardice nearly quenched her long-unslaked thirst for drama. Visions of herself as mediatrix, restoring a runaway wife to her frantic husband, were upset by fearful misgivings in which she saw herself figuring, not in the gilded realm of the serial page, but in lurid paragraphs on the other side of the paper. Paragraphs in which someone heard pistol-shots....
In the dim passage she clutched at Gerald.
"What is he like?" she whispered.
"A regular toff," said Gerald in an awed voice. "Asked for a Miss Grant. None of that name here.—Slight, dark lady.—And then I twigged that he was your party. I've seen his picture once in the News of the World; they snapped him, held up by the police in his motor. How did you get to know 'im, Miss Robinson? He's a lord."
"Oh!" she said. This was indeed a sensation. This would last her all her life!—
*****
Barnaby had had no luck in Bond Street.