“Lew,” said Robert, shaking him by the shoulder, and speaking in a subdued voice very different from the noisy tones which had betrayed them,--“Lew, wake up--there’s spies about--there’s danger at hand.”
“Eh!” cried the other. He regarded his friend for an instant with the half-conscious smile of an abruptly awakened sleeper. The next moment he had shaken himself, and sat up in his chair awake and intelligent to his very finger-points. “Spies--danger--what did you say?”
His hand stole to his pocket instinctively once more.
“Oh, there’s no occasion for that,” said Robert. “All that has happened is this,--there is a woman here--that knows you, Lew----”
“A woman--that knows me!” Perhaps it was genuine relief, perhaps only bravado to reassure his comrade--“Well, Bob, the question is, is she a pretty one?”
“For heaven’s sake,” cried Robert, “be done with nonsense--this is serious. She’s--not a young woman. I’ve heard of her: she’s a stranger, but has got some influence in the place. She saw you as she passed that window.”
“I thought I saw some one pass that window--it’s a devil of a window, a complete spy-hole.”
“And she must have recognised you. She invited me to come to see her when we were out on one of our night walks,--and to bring Lew.”
Lew gave a long whistle: the colour rose slightly on his cheek. “We’ll take her challenge, Bob, my fine fellow, and see what she knows. Jove! I’ve been getting bored with all this quiet. A start’s a fine thing. We’ll go and look after her to-night.”
If Mrs Ogilvy had been at home, it is almost certain that none of these things could have happened--if she had not been kept so long, if Mr Somerville’s other client had not detained him, and, worst of all, if she had not been beguiled by the unaccustomed relief of a sympathetic listener, a friendly hand held out to help her, to waste that precious hour in taking her luncheon with her old friend. That was pure waste--to please him, and in a foolish yielding to those claims of nature which Mrs Ogilvy, like so many women, thought she could defy. To-day, in the temporary relief of her mind after pouring out all her troubles--a process which for the moment felt almost like the removal of them--she had become aware of her own exhaustion and need of refreshment and rest. And thus she had thrown away voluntarily a precious hour.