A note from Lady Oxford to George, an heroic epistle from Ariadne to
Theseus! An invitation too! Ariadne invites Theseus to her rout, and
for something more, conjectured Wogan, than the pleasure of winning
his money at cards. Wogan's anxiety concerning Lady Oxford's attitude
was much increased. There was the ballad, the camp in Hyde Park, there
were the letters of invitation. Mr. Wogan thought it high time to see
Theseus, and leaving Mrs. Barnes with a becoming blush on her features
that laughed through their tears, he walked to Ryder Street.
Mr. Wogan knocked at the door in the deepening dusk. The landlady
opened. She knew Wogan, who, indeed, had occupied her chambers at one
time. She smiled all over her jolly face:
'Mr. Hilton! Taller than ever, and welcome as ever.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Kilburne, I shall soon rival the Monument, but I can
still get under your lintel by stooping. Where is Mr. Johnson?'
'Mr. Johnson? Oh, sir, what a life that poor gentleman lives. Out all
night, home in the morning with mud or dust on him to the shoulder,
and so to bed all day.'
'Then Mr. Johnson must be wakened. I can do it, were he one of the
seven sleepers. George!' cried Mr. Wogan, lifting up his voice.
'Oh, sir, be quiet! A very dainty gentleman has my first floor, and he
will be complaining of the noise. You always were that noisy, Mr.
Hilton!' She walked down the passage as she spoke and threw open a
door upon the right. 'Mr. Johnson, he has my ground floor, but you
can't waken him, loud as you are, nor any man, so be quiet, Mr.
Hilton.'
'Have I to weep for my poor friend's decease?' asked Wogan, as he
entered the room.
'No, sir, or I would not be laughing at your nonsense.'
There was no doubt this was the Parson's lodging. For as Wogan stood
just within the door, he saw by the window Mr. Kelly's scrutoire. It
was the first thing indeed on which his eyes fell. He stepped across
the room and threw open the lid. He saw a dispatch-box, and from the
lock he knew it to be that in which Kelly kept safe the papers of the
Bishop's plot.
'So there's another lodger in the house,' said Nick thoughtfully. He
took up the box and tried the lid. It was locked. But Mr. Wogan would
have preferred that the Parson should have kept the papers in the box
which he had given him at Paris, of which the lock was stouter. That
box he saw further back in the scrutoire, half hidden in news-sheets.
But that too he found to be locked, and shaking it in his hand, was
aware that, like the other, it held papers. The lid of the box was
covered with dust, as though it had not been touched for months. Lady
Oxford's letters had been locked up there. No doubt they were there
still. Mr. Wogan wondered for a little at the strange sentiment which
makes a man keep such dead tokens of a dead passion. He put the box
back amongst the news-sheets, and turning to Mrs. Kilburne,
'But where is the man?' he cried. 'George!' and he rapped on the table
with his cane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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