They passed backwards through the door, then they went down the silent hall and out into the street.  Even as they did so, the clock struck a quarter to two.

“My friend Tavernake,” Pritchard declared, lighting a cigarette with steady fingers, “you are a man.  Come into the club with me while I bathe my forehead.  After all, we’ll have that drink together before we say goodnight.”

CHAPTER XX

A PLEASANT REUNION

Tavernake awoke some hours later with a puzzled sense of having lost his own identity, of having taken up another man’s life, stepped into another man’s shoes.  From the day of his first arrival in London, a raw country youth, till the night when he had spoken to Beatrice on the roof of Blenheim House, nothing that could properly be called an adventure had ever happened to him.  He had never for a moment felt the want of it; he had not even indulged in the reading of books of romance.  The thing which had happened last night, as in the cold morning sunlight he sat up in his bed, seemed to him a thing grotesque, inconceivable.  It was not really possible that those people —­those well-bred, well-looking people—­had seriously contemplated an enormity which seemed to belong to the back pages of history, or that he, Tavernake, had burst through a wall with no weapons in his hand, and had dominated the situation!  He sat there steadily thinking.  It was incredible, but it was true!  There existed still in his mind some faint doubt as to whether they would really have proceeded to extremities.  Pritchard himself had made light of the whole affair, afterwards had treated it, indeed, as a huge practical joke.  Tavernake, remembering that little group as he had first seen it, remained doubtful.

By degrees, his own personal characteristics began to assert themselves.  He began to wonder how his action would affect his commercial interests.  He had probably made an enemy of this wonderful sister of Beatrice’s, the woman who had so completely filled his thoughts during the last few days, the woman, too, who was to have found the money by means of which he was to set his feet upon the first rung of the ladder.  This was a thing, he decided, which must be settled at once.  He must see her and know exactly what terms they were on, whether or not she meant to be off with her bargain.  The thought of action of any sort was stimulating.  He rose and dressed, had his breakfast, and set out on his pilgrimage.

Soon after eleven o’clock, he presented himself at the Milan Court and asked for Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  For several minutes he waited about in nervous anticipation, then he was told that she was not at home.  More than a little disappointed, he pressed for news of her.  The hall porter thought that she had gone down into the country, and if so it was doubtful when she would be back.  Tavernake was now seriously disconcerted.