We were not alone.  Standing on the hearth-rug, his hands behind his back, his brows bent on me benevolently was a man in clerical attire.  He looked ostentatiously, exaggeratedly clerical.  His clerical frock-coat was of inordinate length; his boots were aggravatingly clump-soled; by a very large white tie, masking the edges of a turned-down collar, he proclaimed himself Evangelical.  An otherwise clean-shaven florid face was adorned with brown side-whiskers growing rather long.  A bald, shiny head topped a fringe of brown hair.

I stared at this unexpected gentleman for a second or two, and then, recovering my self-possession, looked enquiringly at Judith.

“Sir Marcus,” she said, “let me introduce my husband, Mr. Rupert Mainwaring.”

Her husband!  This benevolent Evangelical parson her husband!  But the brilliant gallant who had dazzled her eyes?  The dissolute scoundrel that had wrecked her life?  Where was he?  Dumfounded, I managed to bow politely enough, but my stupefaction was covered by Judith rushing across the room and uttering a strange sound which resolved itself into a shrill, hysterical laugh as she reached the door which she opened and slammed behind her.  I heard her scream hysterically in the passage; then the slam of another door; and the silence told me that she had shut herself in her bedroom.  Disregarding the new husband’s presence, I rang the bell, and the servant who had left her kitchen on hearing the scream entered immediately.

“Go to your mistress.  She is ill,” said I.

The maid hurriedly departed.  The parson and I looked at one another.

“I am afraid,” said I, “that my presence is unhappily an intrusion.  I hope to make your better acquaintance on another occasion.”

“Oh, please don’t go,” said he, “my wife is only a little upset and will soon recover.  I beg that you will excuse her.  Besides, I should like to have a talk with you.”

He offered me a chair, my own chair, the comfortable, broad-seated Empire chair I had given Judith as a birthday present years ago, the chair in which I had invariably sat.  He did it with the manner of the master of the house, a most courteous gentleman.  The situation was fantastic.  Some ingenious devil must have conceived it by way of pandering to the after-dinner humour of the high gods.  As I sat down I rubbed my eyes.  Was this brown-whiskered, bald-headed clerical gentleman real?  The rubbing of my eyes dispelled no hallucination.  He was flesh and blood and still regarded me urbanely.  It was horrible.  The desertion of the scoundrelly husband, who I thought was lost somewhere in the cesspool of Europe, was the basis, the sanction of the relations between Judith and myself; and here was this reverend, respectable man apologising for his wife and begging me to be seated in my own chair.  The remark of Judith’s that I should find sabbatical calm in the drawing-room occurred to me, and I had to grip the arms of the chair to prevent myself from joining Judith in her hysterics.