"I hope that Colonel Winslow will make a long stay with us," remarked Mrs. Drelincourt, as she seated herself in a favorite easy chair.
"Why do you hope so?"
"Because the presence of your old friend will be such a pleasure to you; because he will cheer your loneliness, and----"
"Mr. Ormsby," intoned the solemn voice of Wicks, the butler, before any one was aware that the door had been opened.
Drelincourt turned on the instant, and confronted his visitor, one lean, muscular hand gripping the back of his wife's chair like a vise.
Our old acquaintance, his silk, hat balanced carefully in his left hand, advanced with that air of self-consequence which was so much a part of him that he could no more have divested himself of it than he could-have unscrewed and laid aside one of his limbs. He never forgot that he was Mr. Ormsby, of Denham Lodge--not even when he repeated aloud the responses in church and avouched himself a miserable sinner.
He was considerably stouter than when we saw him last, and more scant of breath. His cheeks, too, were fuller and rounder, and his double chin more noticeable than of yore. His complexion was no longer mottled, but of one uniform tint, and that the tint of a boiled lobster, while his once sandy hair had turned completely white. In other respects no change was discernible in him.
"Drelincourt," he began at once, "you and I have not met for twenty years. I have called on you twice since your return, but both times was told you were not at home--a statement which, I tell you candidly, I did not credit. Today, however, I am more fortunate, and it is well I am so, seeing that I am the bearer of news which can scarcely fail to make even you--cold-blooded cynic though you always were--rejoice and feel glad. At last, Drelincourt, at last, and after all these years, the murder of my poor sister will be avenged."
For the next few seconds his listeners might have been figures of wood or stone. They neither stirred nor spoke, but stood or sat in the particular position in which each of them had been arrested by Ormsby's ominous words.
The silence was broken by Drelincourt's clear, level accents.