"
"As risky as that?" Beauregard asked. "I have heard something of him,
but I thought it merely his youth. What's wrong with him?"
"Oh, I can't tell. A thousand things, but all might be done away with
by a single chance like this. I tell you what I'll do. After to-night
I can be spared for a couple of days. I feel rather hipped myself, so I
shall get up to the north and see my man. I know the circumstances and
I know Lewis. If the two are likely to suit each other I have your
authority to give him your message?"
"Certainly, my dear Wratislaw. I have all the confidence in the world
in your judgment. You will be back the day after to-morrow?"
"I shall only be out of the House one night, and I think the game worth
it. I need not tell you that I am infernally anxious both about the
business and my friend. It is just on the cards that one might be the
solution of the other."
"You understand everything?"
"Everything. I promise you I shall be exacting enough. And now I had
better be looking after my own work."
Beauregard stared after him as he went out of the room and remained for
a few minutes in deep thought. Then he deliberately wrote out a foreign
telegram form and rang the bell.
"I fancy I know the man," he said to himself. "He will go. Meantime I
can prepare things for his passage." The telegram was to the fugitive
Gribton at Florence, asking him to meet a certain Mr.
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