Chapter 4
It was in a tumult of conflicting feelings that Welton Keynes left the house that evening; for, strange as some of his experience had been, puzzled as he still was by certain circumstances which had occurred during the day, repelled as he was from time to time by Miss Ferriby's cynicism, he yet felt strongly disinclined to give up the post he had accepted with so much hesitation.
In the first place, he was interested by the novelty of the strange household, where only one servant was to be seen, even though everything was clean, tidy, well kept and well ordered. And in the second place, he was well paid and lightly worked. While, as a crowning inducement for him to remain, there was the fact that he had grave doubts as to the truth of what Miss Ferriby had told him, and that he was full of curiosity to know more.
It was true that he had visual proof of the truth of a great part of what Miss Ferriby had told him. He knew that she had not boasted in vain of her rich and highly placed acquaintances, since he had himself recognized more than one man and woman whom he knew to be in the best society, standing near the window of the long drawing room of The Lawns.
But it was difficult for him to believe that it was charity and benevolence alone which acted like a magnet in drawing the cream of society to the little suburban residence; which made society leaders complain of the time they were wasting there; and which yet held them there in such numbers that the murmur of their voices had pursued him for quite a long distance as he wandered through the grounds.
No. Welton felt sure that however benevolent these smart men and women might be, there was some more powerful inducement at work to throng the little suburban house in this manner. Remembering what Miss Ferriby had herself confessed to him about her inborn love of gambling, he could not doubt that the secret of the attraction The Lawns had for the great world, which is bored and seeks distraction, lay in the fact that Miss Ferriby kept some sort of gaming house, where the rank of the players was high, and where their stakes were high also.
How was he otherwise to account for that singular fact of the windows of the upper floor of the wing being darkened with curtains and drawn blinds? He remembered to have seen at the Kursaal at Ostend when play was high, the blinds of the gambling room in the Cercle privé drawn down in broad daylight to shut out the sun and the stare of curious eyes.
Here, he began to feel sure, was something of the same kind going on. Gaming for high stakes taking place in broad daylight, and the daylight shut out either for privacy, or for instinctive shyness.
He recalled the fact that the blinds were drawn up and the curtains pulled back as soon as the smart crowd of guests had taken their departure. As for the suddenness of their flight, that was another puzzling circumstance for which he could scarcely account. He would have expected to find them taking their departure in the usual way at short intervals. Instead of that, they had appeared to take wing in one flock at a stated moment.
He had got a few steps away from the green door in the wall, pondering these things, and wondering whether he should keep his own counsel for a day or two, or immediately open his heart about it all to his brother, when he caught sight of a figure he remembered very well, standing at the little gate of one of the tiny gardens to the cottages on the left hand side of the lane.
The figure was that of the pretty pale girl, whom he had met in the newspaper shop on his first visit to The Lawns on the previous day. She was in outdoor costume; but as she wore no gloves, it occurred to Welton, who knew how much interested she and her mother had appeared in the life of The Lawns, to wonder whether she had been sent out by her mother on purpose to meet him. For he saw the elder lady at the window of the front room.
He knew he might venture to raise his hat, for she was looking at him shyly as he came along. She bowed, and he crossed the road to speak to her.
"My mother wants to speak to you," she said, "and she has sent me to ask you to come in."
She led the way up the little path into the house, where the old lady, who was evidently in a state of great agitation, came out of the little front room to meet him and to invite him in.
He found that, as usual with houses of this type, the two tiny rooms on this floor had been thrown into one, which was used as dining room and drawing room too, being divided by heavy curtains which could be drawn back to make one room, or joined to make two, as required.
They were now drawn back, and Welton was able to see that the place was furnished with excellent taste, and that it contained many obvious relics of a more prosperous time in the shape of cabinets and curios, handsome books and dainty old china.
The elder lady shook hands with him with a warning look on her face. "I dare say," she began gently, "you will think me a very fussy and interfering old woman to have spoken to you, a stranger, twice about this house and the people in it. But really, you know, I'm so much older than you are, that I think myself privileged to speak out my mind to you, just as I should do if you were my own son."
"Indeed I think it's very kind of you, and I'm not ungrateful," said Welton.
She shook her head gently. "But you've taken the post, haven't you, even after my warning?"
He had to admit the fact.
"And yet," she said, "you must have seen enough already to know that Miss Ferriby's household is a very peculiar one."
"Yes," he said at once, "I am not quite sure that I should have accepted the post if I had understood what a strange household it is. But at the same time I must own that I've seen nothing to warrant my thinking there is anything more than eccentricity about it."
"You say, though, you would not have accepted the post if you had known as much as you do now?"
Welton hesitated. He felt that it was incumbent upon him to be cautious between this old lady and Miss Ferriby, of whom the one was inquisitive and fond of gossip, while she was kind and considerate to him, and the other was equally kind, but decidedly artful.
"I only mean," he said after a moment's thought, "that there is so little work to be done that I feel ashamed of being so well paid for it."
The elder lady glared at him solemnly. "So little work!" she echoed gravely when he paused.
And then she added with ominous meaning, "Ah!"
Welton looked uncomfortable, and the girl interposed. "Mama," she said gently, "you haven't given any reasons, you know."
Her mother turned to her with a gesture, as if to command her silence. "Well," she said, "I hate gossip, and it's not pleasant to have to chatter about one's neighbours. But I really think I am justified in asking you if you've seen nothing surprising or unusual about the household at The Lawns?" And she fixed upon him a piercing gaze.
"Oh, yes," replied Welton readily, "I've seen a good many strange and unusual things. But I've not thought anything much of them."
"Have you noticed," asked the elder lady solemnly, "how few servants there are about?"
"Yes, I have. But I thought nothing of that. I think the fewer servants one sees about, the better the service is, as a rule. And certainly the house is beautifully kept."
"Oh, I dare say. But did you think there was nothing extraordinary about the rush of people you must surely have seen there in the afternoon?"
"There were a great many callers, certainly. Very smart people they seemed to be too."
"Smart! Oh, yes, I dare say they are. But don't you think it rather extraordinary that all these smart people -- these handsomely dressed ladies and well-dressed men -- should all leave their motor cars, not in the lane, but in the road on the left?"
Welton, of course, had known nothing of this. "But the lane is very narrow," he suggested, "and there's no place where they could turn."
"They couldn't turn in the lane itself, but there's no need to do that," said the old lady dryly. "For there's a turning a little way down where they could go, and by which they could get at once into the high road again. And they all know that quite well, for some of them come here time after time. And not only by day either," sh
e added, more solemnly still.
"And how do you account for this throng of visitors?" he asked.
"Well, I hope you'll not repeat what I am saying, since I only tell you because you insist, and because I hope it may be of use to you and help you, but I have an idea -- mind you, it's only an idea -- that Miss Ferriby is the head of a private inquiry agency, and that these smart people who come to see her have all come on business."
"By Jove!" murmured Welton, struck with the idea, which certainly seemed to offer a solution of the mystery concerning The Lawns.
"For there are settled hours for their coming," went on the elder lady, pleased by the attention he gave her suggestion, "and no one comes in the morning. The afternoon there is almost always a crowd, except during the few weeks in the season when everyone is out of Town. And then again people come at night. Only then they don't come in a crowd as they did this afternoon, but one at a time."
Welton, on second thoughts, was already observing that this suggestion, good as it at first seemed, did not meet all the difficulties of the case. And he was sorry that he was listening to this gossip about his employer, with whom personally he had no fault to find.
"If that were so," he said, when the lady paused to take breath, "Miss Ferriby would be a very busy woman, for her labours in the cause of charity are heavy, as I know of my own knowledge."
Both ladies looked interested, and the elder incredulous. "Charity!" she echoed dryly.
"Yes. Ladies, and men too, of all ranks come to her for help and advice in matters of philanthropy," said Welton. "I know that for a fact. There is scarcely a name known among the benevolent that is not on her list of correspondents."
The younger lady turned impulsively to her mother. "Oh, mama," she cried, "let us hope then that we've been too hasty, too ready with unkind suspicions. I'm sure" and she turned to Welton with eagerness "it's not at all pleasant to have ill-natured thoughts of one's neighbours."
The elder lady laughed cynically. "Unfortunately the ill-natured are generally the right people in the world," she said. "But of course you are not bound to pay any attention to what I tell you. Only, if you find yourself mixed up in any unpleasant detective business, and if you are cajoled or led into playing the part of a detective yourself, remember my warning."
The lady, who had invited him to be seated and had sat down herself to converse with her visitor, rose majestically as a sign that she considered the interview at an end.
Welton rose too. "I'm very much indebted to you, at all events," he said, "for your kindness in putting me on my guard. Believe me, I fully appreciate the arguments you bring forward, and I recognize that there is much to be explained about the household at The Lawns. At the same time, it's only fair to say that I've seen nothing more than eccentricity about Miss Ferriby, and that personally she has been most kind and considerate to me. I should be very sorry to think there was anything more serious than the oddity of a reserved nature in her actions. I know her heart to be good and her benevolence boundless."
The lady was looking at him with a rather acid little smile upon her face. "Well, I'm glad you are so well satisfied," she said. "And you are very welcome to look upon me as a gossiping, mischievous old busybody if you please."
"I certainly should not do that," Welton was beginning, when the lady, with a distant bend of the head, disappeared between the curtains which hung in the middle of the long room, leaving him alone with her pretty daughter.
For a moment he was confused and uncomfortable and did not know what to say. He was beginning to offer apologies as he made his way towards the door, when the pretty girl interrupted him by a most charming and reassuring smile. She went out with him, with a glance which intimated that he had better remain silent until they were outside.
When they were in the tiny garden, making their way down to the gate, she said in a low and gentle voice, "Don't look so much disturbed, pray, at the way in which my mother took your protest. You were quite right, and I hope you will never have reason to change your mind about Miss Ferriby. At the same time it's only fair to tell you that my mother is quite right too. She is not the old gossip you may be inclined to think her. It was only her strong sense that there was something going on at The Lawns which it was undesirable to be mixed up with, which led her to speak to you yesterday. She felt, as she said to me afterwards, as she might have done if a son of her own had been about to do something rash, and that was what made her send me running after you, and surprising you by our unconventional behaviour."
Welton, much moved by these words, and even more by the simple sincerity with which she spoke, said with eagerness, "Indeed, I'm very grateful to you both. Of course I don't want to say anything about my employer which might seem to cast an aspersion upon her ways or upon her household. I know she is kind-hearted, and that her cleverness and tact have made her a large circle of acquaintances. If there is anything eccentric about her ways, I like to think it is nothing more than the effect, as she herself said to me, of the personal disadvantages she suffers from. But at the same time, I can not only understand the surprise and suspicion which her odd ways may rouse in her neighbours, but I feel very grateful to you and to your mother for putting me on my guard."
The girl smiled. "My mother has two sons of her own," she said. "Both are away, one in China and the other in India. So she feels a sort of motherly feeling for any man about the same age who seems to her to be in need of any advice or warning."
Welton hesitated. "May I not know the name of such kind, unknown friends as you have both been to me?" he said at last.
"Oh, yes. Our name is Ashcot. I'm Barbara Ashcot, and my father was Major Ashcot of the Engineers. My people are all in the two services: one brother is in the navy, the other in the army. And that's all our history."
He smiled. "I had an uncle in the army," he said. "Captain Keynes. He was killed in action. My own father was in the City, and my only brother, who is only eighteen, is in a bank. And I -- well, I'm glad to be in anything, and I've been thanking my stars that I've got into such an easy berth as that at The Lawns. I do hope, therefore, as I'm an awful duffer, that I shan't have to give it up." He spoke quite wistfully, and into the girl's eyes there came a look of deep concern.
"I wish you had something else to do," she said in the same low, earnest voice as before.
He was surprised by her obstinacy, but touched by it. "I shall be all right," he said cheerfully. "It's a new experience, and I assure you I'm enjoying it. Whether it will be a short or a long one, I don't know; but I don't mean to give it up until I see something better ahead. And that's not likely, I'm afraid. At present the alternative would be a crossing and a broom."
"I'm really not at all sure that might not be better," she said solemnly.
But she would not be persuaded into saying anything more definite than this, though he tried hard to coax her to tell him of any explicit point about the household at The Lawns which had come under her notice and her displeasure. She was careful to say nothing more, and contented herself with telling him that if ever he should want advice or help that she and her mother could give, he was to come to them at once, and they would do what they could.
This was vaguely alarming, being suggestive of the possibility of tragic or terrible events at The Lawns, and the need of an immediate refuge.
But Welton only smiled his thanks, shook warmly the hand she graciously held out to him, and went away feeling dimly that he had got into a maze of unknown dangers and difficulties, none the less real that they appeared more apparent to others than they did to himself.
He found his brother very eager to hear about his experiences of the day; but Welton was cautious, and only gave him the bare outlines of the story, telling of his own work and of the smart visitors he had seen, without mentioning those other small details which had excited his own curiosity and Mrs. Ashcot's suspicions.
Welton, however, had to tell his brother of his visit to the Ashcots, carefully suppressing the exa
ggerated fears and doubts of both ladies; so that he left upon the mind of the younger the impression that all was right with the household at The Lawns.
Perhaps, however, Basil guessed more than his elder brother suspected. It seemed to the shrewd younger brother rather strange that Welton should be so thoroughly satisfied, so soon after his expressing such strong doubts about the post. The truth was that Welton felt as anxious now to keep the post, for a little while at any rate, as he had previously been to give it up. Possibly his acquaintance with the attractive Barbara Ashcot, and the certainty that, if he were to leave Miss Ferriby's employment, he would have no excuse for seeing her again, had something to do with his strong wish to stay at The Lawns.
He now felt so sure that there must be something rather "fishy" about the place that, knowing his brother's shrewdness, he realized that were Basil to learn every circumstance which he had already noted, he would advise him as strongly as the Ashcots had done to have nothing more to do with Miss Ferriby and her philanthropy.
He was conscious that if the house were really either a private inquiry agency or a gaming house, association with it could not but do him harm. In the former case, the agency must be so well known that some of his own old acquaintances would probably meet him some day, and express surprise at his being associated with it; or, in the latter case, there was the risk of its being pounced upon by the police, in which event his own name might be published, with disastrous results to himself.
From time to time Welton would tell himself that all these guesses, and surmises, and doubts and suspicions were rather futile; and that it might turn out, as he had himself in the first place hoped, that Miss Ferriby was nothing more nor less than an eccentric philanthropist, such as she represented herself to be. But in that case, it was impossible to help acknowledging that there were many circumstances about her, and her household and circle, which needed explanation.
On the following morning he went again to The Lawns, and found Miss Ferriby already seated in her corner in the library. He thought she seemed morose and taciturn, and he wondered whether she had heard of his being waylaid by the Ashcots on the previous evening.
However, she said nothing about it, and as there was a larger pile of letters than ever to be handled, they soon got to work. Immersed in business, he lost sight on either side of what might have been troubling them.
So hard did they work, however, that they finished earlier than on the previous day, and Miss Ferriby, leaning back in her chair so far that he lost sight of her face altogether, said suddenly, "Have you spoken to anybody about what we talked about yesterday afternoon?"
"No," answered Welton truthfully. "You told me not to mention it, and I did not."
She suddenly thrust her face out of the darkness of the corner, and fixing her gaze upon him in a very penetrating manner, said shortly, "Do you know anybody in this neighbourhood?"
He knew at once to whom she must be referring, so he answered without hesitation, "Yes. Two ladies named Ashcot."
She drew back and said in a peculiar tone, "Ah!"
Welton, hoping she would say nothing more about them, began to gather his letters and papers together, ready for the afternoon's work. Her sharp tones interrupted him.
"They are busybodies, the pair of them. Be careful not to let them gossip. They are a type of women I loathe. Don't you?"
Welton was unable to agree with her. "I rather like them," he said.
She uttered a scornful sound, which was not exactly a laugh. "I don't so much mind the elder, though I'm sure she is an old chatterbox. But the daughter, with that sickly, ghastly face, and those unnaturally red lips and staring eyes -- I find her insupportable. But then I hate plain women. Being without personal advantages myself, I suppose I am more particular about them in others."
As Welton considered Miss Ashcot one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, he was unable to say anything acceptable in reply to this speech; so he modestly kept silence altogether.
But Miss Ferriby was strangely persistent. "Don't you agree with me that that sickly, bloodless type is horrible, repellent?" she asked, peering forward, and again fixing upon him the gaze of her big grey eyes.
"I think I rather admire a pale olive complexion," he said. "And Miss Ashcot does not look unhealthy, I think."
From the ugly frown which at once appeared upon Miss Ferriby's face, Welton was surprised to learn that she belonged to that almost extinct type of women who are foolish enough to think they can prevent men from admiring handsomer women by running them down. It was such a strange foible to find in a woman like Miss Ferriby, masculine in appearance and in intelligence, that Welton was embarrassed and did not quite know how to treat her. So once more he buried himself in the letters before him.
But Miss Ferriby had had enough of business for the present, and she presently spoke again. "I hear you were in the garden yesterday afternoon?"
"Yes. I went out to smoke a cigarette after luncheon," said Welton rather shortly.
As he spoke, he glanced at her and found that she was regarding him with a strange, fixed stare of inquiry. "You were having a good look about you," she went on, almost in an accusing tone.
"Yes."
"You looked downstairs, and you saw my friends in the drawing room."
"Yes."
"And you looked upstairs too."
Was she going to tell him the explanation of the mystery of the drawn blinds? Instinctively Welton threw at her a questioning look. Miss Ferriby met it, and a curious smile began to hover about her lips.
"Ah, I thought so!" she said under her breath. She edged forward in her chair until she was about a foot nearer to him. Then leaning her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, she fixed her great eyes upon him in a steady, aggressive look, and said, "I thought you had been spying! There was a look in your face last night which made me think so, and then I heard something, and I knew I was right."
From which speech Welton gathered that when he took his walk in the grounds, he had been spied upon by unseen eyes.
"Well," she said at last, suddenly throwing herself back in her chair again, until all he could see of her was the pair of gaunt, pale, large hands, plucking uncannily at the fold of her silk gown, "I shall have to gratify your curiosity, I suppose, or you will be telling fairy tales about me and my surroundings. Come this way."
With her usual phenomenal agility, she had wriggled down from the high, square stool, pushed aside the heavy curtain, flung back the baize door, and stood in a little square hall with a small window high in the wall on the left-hand side, and doors opposite and on the right.
In the middle of this hall, which was handsomely carpeted and hung with tapestries, was a circular staircase with a balustrade of wrought iron, richly gilded. Miss Ferriby pointed to the little landing above, where there were two doors.
"If you will go up this staircase," she said, "after luncheon, and go quietly in by the door opposite to you, you will find yourself in a little room without any light whatever. You will be able to find your way in by the light which will come through the doorway as you go in. You will find a seat on your right hand. Sit down quietly, don't make the least noise, and don't forget to close the door behind you as you go in. Presently you will see by what means I collect money for my charities -- lots and lots of money. Don't stir from your seat till I come myself and let you out."
Welton, deeply interested, but rather reluctant to go through this suggested ordeal, would have protested, but Miss Ferriby cut him short, and made it clear to him that he had no choice. She implied, though she did not say so, that since he himself had been anxious to pry into her secrets, he must now learn them, whether he liked it or not.
As he perceived that there was some logic in this, he submitted, and promised to do exactly as she had told him.
This done, Miss Ferriby took him back into the library, pointing out to him that she was leaving the baize door unbolted for him. Then, rather less cordially than on the previou
s day, she took leave of him, and left him to his luncheon and to his work, warning him once more that he must be in the seat in the darkened room by five minutes to three without fail, and that he would have to remain there exactly an hour and a half.
Welton ate his luncheon, and began his work with mixed feelings. On the one hand he was excited at the thought that he was going to learn, once for all, the secret of The Lawns household which, however, he now began to guess at. On the other hand, there was something rather uncanny about the manner in which he was to satisfy his curiosity, that made him remember with a certain nervous uneasiness the warnings of the Ashcots.
Ridiculous as some of these warnings had seemed, now that he was instructed to find his way alone into a dark room and remain there for an hour and a half without speaking or moving, their rumours and whisperings seemed to be not without some substantial grounds.
The time seemed to drag until it was five minutes to three, when he sprang up from his desk, passed without noise under the curtain and through the doorway beyond, and found himself in the little square hall, over the window of which a curtain had now been drawn, so that all the light there was came from a small lamp of extraordinary shape that hung from the ceiling over the winding staircase.
Welton hastened up the stairs, opened the door pointed out to him by Miss Ferriby, and found himself, as she had said, in a small apartment, absolutely dark but for the faint light from the lamp in the hall behind him. Holding the door open, he observed the chair of which Miss Ferriby had spoken. It was on his right, and was placed to face a wall which appeared to be hung with a sort of coarse black canvas.
He shut the door behind him, groped his way to the chair, and sat down.
At the end of a few minutes he heard someone moving about on the other side of the wall in front of him, and the sounds were so distinct that he knew the supposed wall must be rather in the nature of a tightly drawn curtain.
Presently there were sounds from the lower part of the house, as of the opening and shutting of doors and the faint murmur of distant voices. And then, through the black wall or curtain before him he discerned a glimmer of light, and saw that a hand which he recognized as that of Miss Ferriby had lighted two wax candles in sconces on the walls, and that, between these, and at right angles to the wall before him, there was a tall mirror, about four feet in height and two in width, in a massive gilt frame, on a wall which appeared to be hung with red velvet.
Peering into the rest of the room, which was of about the same size as the one he was in, Welton saw that it was richly furnished, adorned with Oriental draperies and weapons, and divans covered with rich stuffs, that there was a gilt-topped table containing a sort of plate made of pearl, and that Miss Ferriby herself, in the exotic dress and rich jewels she had worn on the previous day, was sitting on a heap of cushions on the floor before the mirror, in front of which was burning in a shallow vessel something that gave out a perfume like incense, and clouded the room with vapour.
Miss Ferriby, having lighted the candles, was sitting as motionless as a sphinx, until the door leading out of the gallery by which Welton had come up opened, and a well dressed lady, with a soft, refined voice, came in. He saw her put some banknotes into the pearl dish, and was able to see that there were a good many of them. Then Miss Ferriby pointed to a chair, the visitor sat down, and what he perceived to be a sort of fortunetelling séance began.
It was all very well managed, very cleverly carried out, very effective and impressive. But it resolved itself into the reading of the magic mirror by Miss Ferriby, according to questions put to her by her visitor, who, guardedly as she put her questions, was evidently anxious to find out whether a certain secret, of which she betrayed the nature in spite of herself, was safe from another person whose knowledge she feared.
Welton grew hot and cold, and was ready to die with shame. Although it was true that he was unaware o£ the identity of the lady, it was perfectly certain that she believed herself to be alone with Miss Ferriby, who was reading out to her, with an appearance of infinite patience and in a dreamy, sonorous voice, the pictures on the mirror as they presented themselves before her.
It was indeed, as Welton saw, nothing but a highly refined and elaborated version of the visit of the servant girls to the gipsy, the fortune telling by a pack of cards, with the old "dark man," "fair woman," "journey," "danger," and the rest.
Only, instead of a poor servant girl, there was a richly dressed woman who might perhaps be a duchess, as dupe, willing dupe, and a woman adorned with real precious stones instead of a shabby gipsy. The greasy pack of cards was replaced by the magic mirror, across which there floated indistinct moving shapes, which Miss Ferriby interpreted in a fashion which, if not distressingly original, appeared to give complete satisfaction to the silly, excitement-loving woman to whom she made her revelations."
The interview lasted five or six minutes, each of which, Welton computed, was paid for by two high value banknotes. And then Miss Ferriby waved her hand, the door appeared to open automatically, and the visitor rose and went out.
Scarcely had she done so, when Welton sprang to his feet, and would have dashed out by the way he had come, when a hand which had a grip he could not resist was placed upon his shoulder, forcing him back into his chair.
A man's voice which he did not know whispered in his ear, "You have promised to stay, and to keep quiet. Remember to keep your word. As a gentleman, you must."
Shuddering and almost sick, Welton began to protest faintly, when a strong hand was placed over his mouth, and the same voice as before said close to his ear, "I'm not going to hurt you. But I have to keep you quiet. It's by Miss Ferriby's orders. There's someone else coming up. Give me your word to sit still, and not to move or speak until the séance is over, and I will let you go at once. Bow your head. I will take it as a sign you agree."
Absolutely helpless in these hands, Welton bowed his head, and at once he found himself free. For one short moment the desire to be out of the sickening atmosphere of fraud and folly was so strong within him that he was on the point of breaking his implied promise, and of springing up and making another dash for the door, or tearing down the veil in front of him and protesting against the elaborate imposture.
Luckily for him, he remembered in time that he was powerless, that the unseen man, who appeared to be appointed his guardian and jailor, knew the place better than he did, might even have a weapon with which to reduce him to silence if it should be necessary. So he remained sitting like a statue, oppressed with indignation and shame, while yet another lady glided into the room on the other side of the black veil, which the faint light on the other side made transparent to him, while it evidently remained opaque to those on the other side.
This client was younger than the last, and it was at once evident that her anxiety was not amatory, but financial. She wanted advice on the subject of a speculation, and Welton was bound to admit that the advice given her was good. She was warned to be careful, not to trust a certain man who pretended to know all about financial matters, but who was a very unsafe guide, and was urged to take the advice instead of the man who stood nearer to her. In other words, so thought Welton, listening full of misery and shame to these confidential communications, her father or her husband.
Unspeakably wretched, Welton sat out half a dozen of these interviews, until at last, after a long pause, a man came into the room. Welton thought he recognized the voice, but could not identify it for the moment.
Not as trustful as the ladies, this, the first male client of the afternoon, came straight towards the veil which separated Welton and his unseen companion from the sibyl and her victims.
"Allow me, Miss Ferriby," he said, as he groped his way to the black veil and raised his hand to touch it, "to make quite sure, in the first place, that we are really alone."
Miss Ferriby's Clients Page 4
