Part 14 (2/2)

”As bad as that,” said the doctor, with grave significance. ”How he managed to get here is a mystery!” Within a quarter-of-an-hour the unconscious Paul, clad in a suit of Colonel Winwood's silk pyjamas, lay in a fragrant room, hung with green and furnished in old, black oak.

Never once, in all his life, had Paul Kegworthy lain in such a room.

And for him a great house was in commotion. Messages went forth for nurses and medicines and the paraphernalia of a luxurious sick-chamber, and-the lady of the house being absurdly anxious--for a great London specialist, whose fee, in Dr. Fuller's quiet eyes, would be amusingly fantastic.

”It seems horrible to search the poor boy's pockets,” said Miss Winwood, when, after these excursions and alarms the Archdeacon and herself had returned to the library; ”but we must try to find out who he is and communicate with his people. Savelli. I've never heard of them. I wonder who they are.”

”There is an historical Italian family of that name,” said the Archdeacon.

”I was sure of it,” said Miss Winwood.

”Of what?”

”That his people--are--well--all right.”

”Why are you sure?”

Ursula was very fond of her uncle. He represented to her the fine flower of the Church of England--a gentleman, a scholar, an ideal physical type of the Anglican dignitary, a man of unquestionable piety and Christian charity, a personage who would be recognized for what he was by Hottentots or Esquimaux or attendants of wagon-lits trains or millionaires of the Middle West of America or Parisian Apaches. In him the branch of the family tree had burgeoned into the perfect cleric.

Yet sometimes, the play of light beneath the surface of those blue eyes, so like her own, and the delicately intoned challenges of his courtly voice, exasperated her beyond measure. ”It's obvious to any idiot, my dear,” she replied testily. ”Just look at him. It speaks for itself.”

The Archdeacon put his thin hand on her plump shoulder, and smiled. The old man had a very sunny smile. ”I'm sorry to carry on a conversation so Socratically,” said he. ”But what is 'it'?”

”I've never seen anything so physically beautiful, save the statues in the Vatican, in all my life. If he's not an aristocrat to the finger tips, I'll give up all my work, turn Catholic, and go into a nunnery--which will distress you exceedingly. And then”--she waved a plump hand--”and then, as I've mentioned before, he reads the Religio Medici. The commonplace, vulgar young man of to-day no more reads Sir Thomas Browne than he reads Tertullian or the Upanishads.”

”He also reads,” said the Archdeacon, stuffing his hand into Paul's knapsack, against whose canvas the stiff outline of a book revealed itself--”he also reads”--he held up a little fat duodecimo--”the Chansons de Beranger.”

”That proves it,” cried Miss Winwood.

”Proves what?”

His blue eyes twinkled. Having a sense of humour, she laughed and flung her great arm round his frail shoulders. ”It proves, my venerable and otherwise distinguished dear, that I am right and you are wrong.”

”My good Ursula,” said he, disengaging himself, ”I have not advanced one argument either in favour of, or in opposition to, one single proposition the whole of this afternoon.”

She shook her head at him pityingly.

The housekeeper entered carrying a double handful of odds and ends which she laid on the library table--a watch and chain and cornelian heart, a cigarette case bearing the initials ”P.S.,” some keys, a very soiled handkerchief, a sovereign, a s.h.i.+lling and a penny. Dr. Fuller had sent them down with his compliments; they were the entire contents of the young gentleman's pockets.

”Not a card, not a sc.r.a.p of paper with a name and address on it?” cried Miss Winwood.

”Not a sc.r.a.p, miss. The doctor and I searched most thoroughly.”

”Perhaps the knapsack will tell us more,” said the Archdeacon.

The knapsack, however, revealed nothing but a few toilet necessaries, a hunk of stale bread and a depressing morsel of cheese, and a pair of stockings and a s.h.i.+rt declared by the housekeeper to be wet through. As the Beranger, like the Sir Thomas Browne, was inscribed ”Paul Savelli,”

which corresponded with the initials on the cigarette case, they were fairly certain of the young man's name. But that was all they could discover regarding him.

”We'll have to wait until he can tell us himself,” said Miss Winwood later to the doctor.

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