By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with the dead, for her striking face assumed a more normal expression of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she exclaimed sharply,—
“Oh, so you’ve come at last, Mr. Vivian! And pray what have you to say? What about the rashes? And what is this danger that threatens Mr. Sagittarius?”
“We’d better take the danger first, my dear,” said Mr. Sagittarius, with grave anxiety.
“Very well. Not that it should be the most important to one who wears the toga virilibus!”
“True, my love. Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think, and set me more at ease. Well, sir?”
Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir Tiglath’s declarations, and he therefore replied,—
“I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for five-and-forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention of—of—”
“Oh what, sir, of what?” said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.
“Of doing him violence,” replied the Prophet, impressively.
“What is the gent’s name?” said Mr. Sagittarius, in great agitation.