Part 41 (1/2)
”How carefully you choose language. No, I merely wonder.”
”You have no apprehension?”
”Not a sc.r.a.p. But I confess to feeling curious.”
”Then the sea air hasn't taught you to recognise that the whole thing came from overstrain.”
”No,” said Guildea, very drily.
He walked on in silence for a minute. Then he added:
”You thought it would?”
”I certainly thought it might.”
”Make me realise that I had a sickly, morbid, rotten imagination--heh?
Come now, Murchison, why not say frankly that you packed me off to Westgate to get rid of what you considered an acute form of hysteria?”
The Father was quite unmoved by this attack.
”Come now, Guildea,” he retorted, ”what did you expect me to think? I saw no indication of hysteria in you. I never have. One would suppose you the last man likely to have such a malady. But which is more natural--for me to believe in your hysteria or in the truth of such a story as you told me?”
”You have me there. No, I mustn't complain. Well, there's no hysteria about me now, at any rate.”
”And no stranger in your house, I hope.”
Father Murchison spoke the last words with earnest gravity, dropping the half-bantering tone--which they had both a.s.sumed.
”You take the matter very seriously, I believe,” said Guildea, also speaking more gravely.
”How else can I take it? You wouldn't have me laugh at it when you tell it me seriously?”
”No. If we find my visitor still in the house, I may even call upon you to exorcise it. But first I must do one thing.”
”And that is?”
”Prove to you, as well as to myself, that it is still there.”
”That might be difficult,” said the Father, considerably surprised by Guildea's matter-of-fact tone.
”I don't know. If it has remained in my house I think I can find a means. And I shall not be at all surprised if it is still there--despite the Westgate air.”
In saying the last words the Professor relapsed into his former tone of dry chaff. The Father could not quite make up his mind whether Guildea was feeling unusually grave or unusually gay. As the two men drew near to Hyde Park Place their conversation died away and they walked forward silently in the gathering darkness.
”Here we are!” said Guildea at last.
He thrust his key into the door, opened it and let Father Murchison into the pa.s.sage, following him closely and banging the door.
”Here we are!” he repeated in a louder voice.