As the time drew near, the General having again conferred with the waiter, conversed with the porter, and even talked a little with Boots--withdrew to his small square sitting-room and pair of candles up-stairs, and awaited the arrival of Monsieur Varbarriere, with his back to the fire, in a state of extreme fidget.
That gentleman's voice he soon heard upon the passage, and the creaking of his heavy tread; and he felt as he used, when a young soldier, on going into action.
The General stepped forward. The waiter announced a gentleman who wished to see him; and Varbarriere's dark visage and mufflers, and sable mantle loomed behind; his felt hat in his hand, and his wavy cone of grizzled hair was bowing solemnly.
"Glad you're come--how d'ye do?" and Varbarriere's fat brown hand was seized by the General's pink and knotted fingers in a very cold and damp grasp. "Come in and sit down, sir. What will you take?--tea, or dinner, or what?"
"Very much obliged. I have ordered something, by-and-by, to my room--thank you very much. I thought, however, that you might possibly wish to see me immediately, and so I am here, at all events, as you soldiers say, to report myself," said Varbarriere, with his unctuous politeness.
"Yes, it _is_ better, I'd rather have it now," answered the General in a less polite and more literal way. "A chair, sir;" and he placed one before the fire, which he poked into a blaze. "I--I hope you are not fatigued,"--here the door shut, and the waiter was gone; "and I want to hear, sir, if you please, the--the meaning of the letter you favoured me with."
The General by this time had it in his hand open, and tendered it, I suppose for identification, to M. Varbarriere, who, however, politely waved it back.
"I quite felt the responsibility I took upon myself when I wrote as I did. That responsibility of course I accept; and I have come all this way, sir, for no other purpose than to justify my expressions, and to invite you to bring them to the test."
"Of _course_, sir. Thank you," said the General.
Varbarriere had felt a momentary qualm about this particular branch of the business which he had cut out for himself. When he wrote to General Lennox he was morally _certain_ of the existence of a secret passage into that green room, and also of the relations which he had for some time suspected between Sir Jekyl and his fair guest. On the whole it was not a bad _coup_ to provide, by means of the old General's jealousy, such literal proof as he still required of the concealed entrance, through which so much villany had been accomplished--and so his letter--and now its consequences--about which it was too late to think.