'I cannot help myself. I know that it is unsafe. But I have been prodigiously uneasy, and I felt it impossible to obtain rest of mind without seeing and speaking with you. I have a few days of liberty; I have taken advantage of them. Where is she?'
'Oh! she is right enough.'
'But whereabouts is she?'
'Oh! not very far off. Housekeeper to a certain person, unmarried of course.'
'Which?'
'Oh! both.'
A pause—Mr. Holwood felt in his pocket for his latchkey. 'A—clergyman, I hope?'
'Bless your soul, a seafaring fellow, a dissolute dog, been a smuggler—mixed up in—but, ahem!—you are in the Government.'
'No, not exactly,—in the Foreign Office. You—you don't mean to imply——'
'Never stir in dirty ponds or you wake bad smells. What can you expect? What is born in the bone comes out in the flesh.'