“I must go in,” said Rosamund abruptly, as though starting from a dream.

CHAPTER 34

She was gone, and Warburton stood biting his lips.  Had he shaken hands with her?  Had he said good-night?  He could not be sure.  Nothing was present to him but a sense of gawkish confusion, following on a wild impulse which both ashamed and alarmed him, he stood in a bumpkin attitude, biting his lips.

A hansom came crawling by, and the driver called his attention—­ “Keb, sir?” At once he stepped forward, sprang on to the footboard, and—­stood there looking foolish.

“Where to, sir?”

“That’s just what I can’t tell you,” he answered with a laugh.  “I want to go to somebody’s house, but don’t know the address.”

“Could you find it in the Directory, sir?  They’ve got one at the corner.”

“Good idea.”

The cab keeping alongside with him, he walked to the public-house, and there, midway in whisky-and-soda, looked up in the great red volume the name of Strangwyn.  There it was,—­a house in Kensington Gore.  He jumped into the hansom, and, as he was driven down Park Lane, he felt that he had enjoyed nothing so much for a long time; it was the child’s delight in “having a ride”; the air blew deliciously on his cheeks, and the trotting clap of the horse’s hoofs, the jingle of the bells, aided his exhilaration.  And when the driver pulled up, it was with an extraordinary gaiety that Will paid him and shouted good-night.

He approached the door of Mr. Strangwyn’s dwelling.  Some one was at that moment turning away from it, and, as they glanced at each other, a cry of recognition broke from both.

“Coming to make inquiry?” asked Sherwood.  “I’ve just been doing the same thing.”

“Well?”

“No better, no worse.  But that means, of course, nearer the end.”

“Queer we should meet,” said Warburton.  “This is the first time I’ve been here.”

“I can quite understand your impatience.  It seems an extraordinary case; the poor old man, by every rule, ought to have died weeks ago.  Which way are you walking?”

Will answered that he did not care, that he would accompany Sherwood.

“Let us walk as far as Hyde Park Corner, then,” said Godfrey.  “Delighted to have a talk with you.”  He slipped a friendly hand under his companion’s arm.  “Why don’t you come, Will, and make friends with Milligan?  He’s a splendid fellow; you couldn’t help taking to him.  We are getting on gloriously with our work.  For the first time in my life I feel as if I had something to do that’s really worth doing.  I tell you this scheme of ours has inconceivable importance; it may have results such as one dare not talk about.”

“But how long will it be before you really make a start?” asked Warburton, with more interest than he had yet shown in this matter.