There was something ominous about the old bookworm's act as he went softly back into his half-dark, dusty room, evidently thinking deeply, till he stopped short in the middle to stand gazing down at the floor. "Yes, he said he was ill; he looked ill when he came up to the door-- half mad. He will come back again, perhaps to-morrow--perhaps to-morrow. Hah! it was very near." He raised his head now, went to the drawer from which he had taken the key, and placed back in it the heavy life-preserver, and then taking from the tail of the coat one of the short, old-fashioned pocket pistols which were loaded by unscrewing the little barrel by means of a key. This he examined, taking off the cap, after raising the hammer and putting a fresh one in its place. After this he closed the drawer and sat down to think. "Yes," he said, half aloud, "it was very near. The next time he comes perhaps he'll stay. He is getting to be a nuisance, and a dangerous one, as well." CHAPTER TWENTY. STRANGELY MYSTERIOUS PROCEEDINGS. The Clareboroughs' carriage was at the door, and the well-matched, handsome pair of horses were impatiently pawing the ground, in spite of sundry admonitions from the plump coachman of the faultless turn-out to be "steady there!" "hold still!" and the like. Mr Roach, the butler, had appeared for a minute on the step, looking very pompous and important, exchanged nods with the coachman, and gone in again to wait for the descent of their people, bound for one of Lord Gale's dinner-parties in Grosvenor Place. All was still in the hall as the door was closed, and the marble statues and bodiless busts did not move upon their pedestals, nor their blank faces display the slightest wonder at the proceedings which followed, even though they were enough to startle them out of their equanimity. For all at once the pompous, stolid butler and the stiff, military-looking footman, in his good, refined livery, suddenly seemed to have been stricken with a kind of delirious attack. The expression upon their faces changed from its customary social diplomatic calm to one of wild delight, and they both broke into a spasmodic dance, a combination of the wildest step of the _can-can_ and the mad angulations of a nigger breakdown, with the accompaniment of snapping of fingers at each other and the final kick-up and flop of the right foot upon the floor. Then they rushed at each other and embraced--the solemn, middle-aged butler and the tall young footman--theatrically, after which they seemed to come to their normal senses, and quietly shook hands. "'Bliged to let some of the steam off, old man?" whispered the footman. "Yes, Orthur, my boy, had to open the safety valve," replied the butler. "We're made men, eh?" "Not quite," said the footman, grinning, "but getting into shape. Three hundred a-piece. I say, ain't it grand?" "Splendid," said the butler, with a broad smile. "But steady now." "I say; wasn't the idea right?"