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The listener outside misheard this speech thus: 'You will be glad of a companion whilst I am away. I will go up to town to-morrow and see Miss Perzio. He ground his teeth, and clenched his hands, and held himself in resolute silence, fighting against the instinct which prompted him to cry aloud and dash in upon the two, and either slay them both, or sell his own life, then and there.
There was a woman in the question apparently, and it would seem that the friends were quarrelling concerning her. But the Greek soon heard enough to convince him that this woman was not Thecla Perzio. The voices grew louder, and some open breach of the peace seemed imminent. The friends were rehearsing their own especial scene in Barndale's comedy.
Having definitely failed in this attempt, he resolved to go off at once without preparation, and ask at the hotel for Miss Perzio, and then a round, unvarnished tale deliver. This resolution formed, he started at once and hurried, lest it should break by the way. Lilian and he were within twenty yards of each other, neither of them knowing it, when his cab rushed up to the door of the hotel.
It was thus that Lilian found herself under the same roof with Thecla Perzio, who lived there with a sore and frightened heart, waiting for that shallow lover who had caught her in love's toils, and broken up her life for her, and who now left her poor appeal unanswered.
'Always your friend, 'Thecla Perzio. After the reading of this epistle, the friends sat in silence, regarding each other with grave looks. In the silence they could hear the river lapping against the bank, and the rustling of the boughs on the roof, and the moaning and sighing of the wind.
On the day following Barndale's arrest and release, Lilian sat by her brother's bedside, when the door of the bedroom opened noiselessly, and two women stole in on stealthy tiptoe. One was Barndale's maiden sister, and the other was poor little Thecla Perzio. Lilian kissed them both; and Thecla said, in a tearful, frightened whisper. 'It is all my wicked, wicked fault.
I will go up to town to-morrow and see Miss Perzio. You stay here. I shall either wire to you or come back in the evening. The weather had been hot and clear for weeks together, and the traditions of English summer were preparing to enforce themselves by the common thunderstorm. The wind moaned in swift and sudden gusts, and the distant thunder rumbled threateningly.
And with no great difficulty Thecla Perzio was brought to his opinion. By Christmas time Leland was well and strong again. The chase after the Greek was dismissed from the official mind by this time: and Barndale, being reminded of Inspector Webb by the receipt of the promissory note for five hundred pounds, wrote to that official to offer him a week or two in the country.
But he found none, and the Greek was already growing dim in the twilight mist. And again Demetri Agryopoulo went his own way, and the darkness shrouded him. Thecla Perzio received Barndale with much shyness and embarrassment; and he, seeing that she was a good deal afraid of him, plucked up courage and treated her rather wilfully.
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