"You have been most considerate, Mr. Drumley, and my thanks are due to you."
A minute later the men were gone. Then Mrs. Brooke rang the bell and ordered all the lamps in the hall except one to be extinguished: that one but served, as it were, to make the darkness visible. No sooner was this done and the servant gone, than Margery once more put in an appearance.
"They're gone, mum, every man-jack of 'em; and ain't Muster Drummle in a rare wax 'cos he couldn't find Muster Geril!"
Scarcely had the girl finished speaking, when one of the men in armour at the foot of the staircase stepped down from his pedestal and came slowly forward. Margery fell back with a cry of terror, for not even she had been in the secret.
But Clara, rushing to her husband, pushed up his visor and clasped him in her arms. "Saved! saved!" she cried in a voice choked with the emotion she could no longer restrain.
"For a little while, my darling, perchance only for a little while," was the mournful response.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
We are at Linden Villa, a pretty little detached house, standing in its own grounds, in one of the north-western suburbs of London, and the time is the morning of the day after the murder of the Baron von Rosenberg. Two people are seated at breakfast--George Crofton and his wife Stephanie. For, Mr. Crofton's protestations and objurgations notwithstanding at the interview between himself and Clara Brooke, he had thought fit within a month after that date to make an offer of his hand and heart to Mademoiselle Stephanie Lagrange, an offer which had been duly accepted. And, in truth, the ex-queen of the Haute Ecole was a far more suitable wife for a man like George Crofton than Clara Brooke could possibly have been.
Mr. Crofton presented a somewhat seedy appearance this morning; there was a worn look about his eyes, and his hand was scarcely as steady as it might have been. His breakfast consisted or a tumbler of brandy-and-soda and a rusk: it was his usual matutinal repast. Mrs. Crofton, who was one of those persons who are always blessed with a hearty appetite, having disposed of her cutlet and her egg, was now leaning back in an easy-chair, feeding a green and gold parakeet with tiny lumps of sugar, and sipping at her chocolate between times. She was attired in a loose morning wrapper of quilted pale blue satin, with a quantity of soft lace round her throat, and looked exceedingly handsome.
"Steph, I think I have told you before," said Mr. Crofton in a grumbling tone, "that I don't care to have any of your old circus acquaintances calling upon you here. I thought you had broken off the connection for good when you became my wife."