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He breathed again when he had read the sequence of short but pithy paragraphs. Mrs. Minchin's new name was not given after all, nor that of her adopted district; while Langholm himself only slunk into print as "a well-known novelist who, oddly enough, was among the guests, and eye-witness of a situation after his own heart."
"You probably do; he is the judge, you know!" "The judge, is he?" "Yes; and I wanted to ask you something just now in the tent. Did you mean the Mrs. Minchin who was tried for murder, when you were talking about your plot?" Langholm experienced an unforeseen shock from head to heel; he could only nod. "He was the judge who tried her!" the schoolgirl said with pardonable pride.
William by this time had raised up her head, and felt her pulse, and perceiving that it still beat, though very languidly, was persuaded that if they could get immediate assistance she might be saved; he therefore said, "Rise, John, and let us lose no time in reaching Langholm; there is need for the greatest exertion; Marion may yet be saved, if we can only manage to carry her to Mr. Armstrong's.
"Thank you," said Langholm, after some little hesitation; "as a matter of fact, I should like it very much. Venn," he added, leaning right across the little table, "I know the woman well! I believe in her absolutely, on every point, and I mean to make her neighbors and mine do the same. That is my object don't give it away!" "Dear boy, these lips are sealed," said Valentine Venn.
"Which is the champion non sequitur of literature," added Langholm, with literary arrogance, as he took the lad's hand cordially in his own, only to release it hurriedly before he crushed such slender fingers to their hurt. "Mr. Langholm," pursued Venn, "is the hero of that paragraph" Langholm kicked him under the table "that that paragraph about his last book, you know.
The riddle was perhaps more easily solvable by an inveterate novelist than by the average member of the community. It was of a kind which Langholm had been concocting for many years. "I suppose there is some secret," said he, taking a fresh grip of his stick, in sudden loathing of the living type which he had only imagined hitherto. "Ah! You've hit it," purred the wretch.
"I seem to have heard your voice before," said Langholm, to whom the wild hair on the invisible face was also not altogether unfamiliar. "Where do you come from?" "A little place called Australia." "The devil you do!" And Langholm stood very still in the dark, for now he knew who this man was, and what manner of evidence he might furnish, and against whom.
And there were the two new Beeston Humbers; but their lustrous plating and immaculate enamel did not shame his own old disreputable roadster, for the missing machine certainly was not there. Langholm was turning away when the glazed gun-rack caught his eye. Yes, this was the room in which the guns were kept. He had often seen them there. They had never interested him before. Langholm was no shot.
Lucky bargee! Have you had her under the microscope all the summer? Ye gods, what a part of Mrs. "Drink up," said Langholm, grimly, as the champagne made an opportune appearance; "and now tell me who that fellow is who's opening the piano, and since when you've started a musical dinner."
"What!" cried Venn, below his breath; "do you mean to say you are a friend of Mrs. Minchin's, or whatever her name is now, and that you never heard of Severino?" "No," replied Langholm, his heart in an instantaneous flutter. "Who is he?" "The man she wanted to nurse the night her husband was murdered the cause of the final row between them! His name was kept out of the papers, but that's the man."
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