CHAPTER IV.

[pg 147]CHAPTER IV.The Baron was a few minutes late in joining the party at lunch, and when he appeared he held an open letter in his hand. It was only the middle of the next day, and yet he could have sworn that last night he was comparatively whole-hearted, he felt so very much more in love already.“Yet anozzer introdogtion has found me out,”he said as he took his seat.“I have here a letter of invitation vich I do not zink I shall accept.”He threw an amorous glance at Lady Alicia, which her watchful mother rightly interpreted as indicating the cause of his intended refusal.“Who is it this time?”asked Mr Bunker.“Sir Richard Brierley of Brierley Park, Dampshire. Is zat how you pronounce it?”“Sir Richard Brierley!”exclaimed the Countess;“why, Alicia and I are going to visit some relatives of ours who live only six miles from Brierley Park! When has he asked you, Baron?”“Ze end of next week.”“How odd! We are going down to Dampshire at the end of next week too. You must accept, Baron!”“I shall!”exclaimed the overjoyed Baron.“Shall ve go, Bonker?”“I’m not asked, I’m afraid.”“Ach, bot zat is nozzing. I shall tell him.”[pg 148]“As you please, Baron,”replied Mr Bunker, with a half glance at Lady Alicia.The infatuated Baron had already begun to dread the inevitable hour of separation, and this piece of good fortune put him into the highest spirits. He felt so amiable towards the whole world that when the four went out for a stroll in the afternoon he lingered for a minute by Lady Grillyer’s side, and in that minute Mr Bunker and Lady Alicia were out of hail ahead. The Baron’s face fell.“Shall I come down to this place?”said Mr Bunker.“Would you like to?”“I should be sorry,”he replied,“to part with—the Baron.”Lady Alicia had expected a slightly different ending to this sentence, and so, to tell the truth, Mr Bunker had intended.“Oh, if you can’t stay away from the Baron, you had better go.”“It is certainly very hard to tear myself away from so charming a person as the Baron; perhaps you can feel for me?”“I think he is very—nice.”“He thinks you very nice.”“Does he?”said Lady Alicia, with great indifference, and a moment later changed the subject.Meanwhile the Baron was growing very uneasy. Of course it was quite natural that Mr Bunker should find it pleasant to walk for a few minutes by the side of the fairest creature on earth, and very possibly he was artfully[pg 149]pleading his friend’s cause. Yet the Baron felt uneasy. He remembered Mr Bunker’s invariable success with the gentler sex, his wit, his happy smile, and his good looks; and he began to wish most sincerely that these fascinations were being exercised on the now somewhat breathless Countess, for his efforts to overtake the pair in front had both annoyed and exhausted Lady Grillyer.“Need we walk quite so fast, Baron?”she suggested; and Lady Grillyer’s suggestions were of the kind that are evidently meant to be acted upon.“Ach, I did forged,”said the Baron, absently, and without further remark he slackened his pace for a few yards and then was off again.“You were telling me,”gasped the Countess,“of something you thought of—doing when—you went—home.”“Zo? Oh yes, it vas—Teufel! I do not remember.”“Really, Baron,”said the Countess, decidedly,“I cannot go any farther at this rate. Let us turn. The others will be turning too, in a minute.”In fact the unlucky Baron had clean run Lady Grillyer’s maternal instincts off their feet, and he suffered for it by seeing nothing of either his friend or his charmer for an hour and a half.That night he accepted Sir Richard’s invitation, but said nothing whatever about bringing a friend.For the next week Rudolph was in as many states of mind as there were hours in each day. He walked and rode and drove with Lady Alicia through the most romantic spots he could find. He purchased a large assortment of golf-clubs, and under her tuition essayed to play[pg 150]that most dangerous of games for mixed couples. In turn he broke every club in his set; the cavities he hewed in the links are still pointed out to the curious; but the heart of the Lady Alicia alone he seemed unable to damage. There was always a moment at which his courage failed him, and in that fatal pause she invariably changed the subject with the most innocent air in the world.Every now and then the greenest spasms of jealousy would seize him. Why did she elect to disappear with Mr Bunker on the very morning that he had resolved should settle his fate? It is true he had made the same resolution every morning, but on this particular one he had no doubt he would have put his fate to the touch. And why on a certain moonlight evening was he left to the unsentimental company of the Countess?He made no further reference to the visit to Brierley Park; in fact he shunned discussion of any kind with his quondam bosom friend.The time slipped past, till the visit to St Egbert’s was almost at an end. On the day after to-morrow all four were going to leave (where Mr Bunker was going, his friend never troubled to inquire).They sat together latish in the evening in the Baron’s room. That very afternoon Lady Alicia had spent more time in Mr Bunker’s society than in his, and the Baron felt that the hour had come for an explanation.“Bonker, I haf a suspection!”he exclaimed, suddenly.“It is not I, bot you, who are ze friend to ze beautiful Lady Alicia. You are not doing me fair!”[pg 151]“My dear Baron!”“It is so: you are not doing me fair,”the Baron reiterated.“My dear fellow,”replied Mr Bunker,“it is you are so much in love that you have lost your wonted courage. You don’t use your chances.”“I do not get zem.”“Nonsense, Baron! I haven’t spent one hour in Lady Alicia’s company to your twenty-four, and yet if I’d been matrimonially inclined I could have proposed twice over. You’ve had the chance of being accepted fifty times.”“I haf not been accepted vunce,”said the Baron, moodily.“Have you put the question?”“I haf not dared.”“Well, my dear Baron, whose fault is that?”The Baron was silent.“Ask her to-morrow.”“No, Bonker,”said the Baron, sadly;“she treats me not like a lover. She talks of friendship. I do not vish a frient!”Mr Bunker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.“You don’t think you have touched her heart?”he asked at length.“I fear not.”“You must try an infallible recipe for winning a woman’s heart. You must be in trouble.”“In trouble!”“I have tried it once myself, with great success.”[pg 152]“Bot how?”“You must fall ill.”“Bot I cannot; I am too healthful, alas!”Mr Bunker smiled artfully.“They come to tea in our rooms to-morrow, you know. By then, Baron, you must be laid up, ill or not, just as you please. A grain of Lady Alicia’s sympathy is worth more than a ton of even your wit.”The standard chosen for the measurement of his wit escaped the Baron, the scheme delighted him.“Ha, Bonker! schön! I tvig! Goot!”he cried.“How shall ve do?”“Leave it to me.”The Baron reflected, and his smile died away.“Sopposing,”he said, slowly,“zey find out? Is it vise? Is it straight?”“They can’t find out. They go the next morning, and what’s to prevent your making a quick recovery and pluckily going down to Brierley Park as the interesting convalescent? She will know that you’ve made a dangerous journey on her account.”The Baron’s face cleared again.“Let us try!”he said;“anyzing is better zan my present state. Bot, be careful, Bonker!”“I shall take the most minute precautions,”replied Mr Bunker.[pg 153]CHAPTER V.The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemed a little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend was as cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courage into Rudolph.Mr Bunker’s bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so he declared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.“Keep your room all morning,”he said,“and look as pale as you can. I shall make my room ready for you.”When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for a few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping. On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies’ way.When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat, the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation of astonishment,—and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full of flowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe,[pg 154]and fireplace were most artistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a large bottle labelled“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour,”and a medicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, most remarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker’s bath filled with water and alive with goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in a cage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the most delicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangement reflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.“Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?”he asked.“To show your love of nature.”“Vy so?”“There is nothing that pleases a woman more.”“My friend, you zink of everyzing!”exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.When four o’clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garments and got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change of attire, but on his friend’s expostulating against such a thorough precaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historic blacking of Othello.“Leave it all to me, my dear Baron,”he said, reassuringly, as he tucked him in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrival of their guests.They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the“dear Baron,”while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusually reserved.[pg 155]In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was the matter.“She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has found something out,”he said to himself.However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could have nothing to do with the Baron’s indisposition, for she displayed the most ingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedly at himself.“So sudden!”exclaimed the Countess.“It is rather sudden, but we’ll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,”said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by a cheerful manner.“Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?”demanded the countess.Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied,“Oh, dear, no! that is—at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to be alarmed.”“I amsosorry,”murmured Lady Alicia.Her mother looked at her approvingly.“Poor Baron!”she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.“So far from home!”sighed Mr Bunker.“And yet so cheerful through it all,”he added.“What did you say was the matter?”asked the Countess.Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain a little mystery round his friend’s malady.“The doctor hasn’t yet given a decided opinion,”he replied.“Can’t we do anything?”said Lady Alicia, softly.[pg 156]Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch of sympathy.“Poor Rudolph!”he exclaimed.“It would cheer him immensely, I know, and ease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a few minutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman’s.”The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant between those proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirable chance of completing the Baron’s conquest.“His relations are far away,”said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of the window.“We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?”suggested Lady Grillyer.“Yes, mamma,”replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprised their host.With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkened sick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a rueful semblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.“Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can I zank you?”“My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our hosthors de combat,”said the Countess, graciously.“Just when you wanted to go away too!”added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.“Alas!”he replied,“it is hard indeed.”[pg 157]“You must hurry up and get better,”said the Countess, in her most cheering sick-room manner.“It won’t do to disappoint the Brierleys, you know.”“You must come down forpartof the time,”smiled her daughter.These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one to the other with great concern.“Dear me!”said the Countess,“surely it isn’t so very serious, Mr Bunker; it isn’tinfectious, is it?”The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily,“Ach, no, it is bot a cold.”Lady Grillyer’s expression changed.“A cold!”she said.“Dear me, that can’t be so very serious, Baron.”“It is a bad cold,”said the Baron.By this time the ladies’ eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.“This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture,”said the Countess, examining the bottle.The Baron incautiously admitted it was.“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!”she exclaimed;[pg 158]“why, I never heard of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn’t seem so very bad, Baron.”“Ze doctor told me to take it so,”replied the Baron.The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion in her voice,“I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion.”The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.“In the Baron’s desire to spare your feelings,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely,“he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an ordinary cough-mixture.”“Oh,”said the Countess.Lady Alicia’s attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and suddenly she exclaimed,“Why, there are goldfish in it!”The Baron’s nerve was fast deserting him.“Ze doctor ordered zem,”he began—“I mean, I am fond of fishes.”The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned severely to his friend.“Whatis the matter with the Baron?”she demanded.Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.“The dog was destroyed at once,”he replied, with intense gravity.“It is therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter.”“The dog!”cried the two ladies together.“By this evening,”he continued,“we shall know the worst—or the best.”[pg 159]“What do you mean?”exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the bed.“I mean,”replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration,“that this bath is a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to look——”But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the Baron’s face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.“It’s beginning already!”she shrieked.“Alicia, my love, come quickly. How dare you expose us, sir?”“Calm yourselves. I assure you——”pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after them, but they were at the door before him.The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying,“No, no, it is false!”he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great splash among the startled goldfish.The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror that rapidly passed into intense indignation.“I am not ill!”he cried.“It vos zat rascal Bonker’s plot. He made me! I haf not hydrophobia!”Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles. For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then only remarking,“I have never been so insulted before,”she went out, and her daughter followed her.As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after[pg 160]roar of laughter, but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to his injured friend.“You rascal! you villain!”he shouted,“zis is ze end of our friendship, Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!”“My dear Baron,”gasped Mr Bunker,“I could not put such an inartistic end to so fine a joke for the world.”“You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad enoff for you!”With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:“After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you.”“False friend!”thundered the Baron.“My dear Baron!”said Mr Bunker, mildly,“whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you’d only left it all to me——”“Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!”And with that the infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.“I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day[pg 161]through the dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave.”“I am not surprised,”he replied.“Then it was false?”“As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn’t happen to be mine.”“Were youeverin the Church?”“Not to my personal knowledge.”“Yet you said you were?”“I was in an asylum.”She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with great amusement.“You have deceivedme,”she said,“and you have treated your other friend—who is far too good for you—disgracefully. Have you anything to say for yourself?”“Not a word,”he replied, cheerfully.“You mustnevertreat me again as—as I let you.”As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly,“I don’tsupposeI shall ever see you again. In future we are notlikelyto meet.”“The lady and the lunatic?”said he.“Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and better luck.”“Good-bye,”she answered coldly, and added as they parted,“my mother, of course, is extremely angry with you.”“There,”he said with a smile,“you see I still come in useful.”She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the hotel.[pg 162]“It seems to me,”he reflected,“that I shall have to set out on my adventures again alone.”CHAPTER VI.The Baron’s natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word, and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied curtly, as he went to the door,“Ze 5.30.”“And where do you go now?”“Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone.”“Good-bye, then, Baron,”said Mr Bunker.“I think I shall go up to town.”“Go, zen,”replied the Baron, opening the door;“I haf no furzer vish to see a treacherousspongezat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost takes money.”He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would have seen a look in Mr Bunker’s face that he had never seen before. He half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought with his lips very tight set.All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the Baron had known.“I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”he said to himself;“but the weapons I shall choose myself.”He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a[pg 163]wire, and then with considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the hotel.* * * * *When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron’s directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them to be found.“Ze rascal!”he muttered;“I did not zink he was zief as well.”It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley station in anything but an amiable frame of mind. There, to his great annoyance and surprise, he found no signs of Sir Richard’s carriage; there were no stables near, and, after fuming for some time on the platform, he was forced to leave his luggage with the station-master and proceed on foot to Brierley Park.He arrived shortly before seven o’clock, after a dark and muddy tramp, and, still swearing under his breath, pulled the bell with indignant energy.“I am ze Baron von Blitzenberg, bot zere vas no carriage at ze station,”he informed the butler in his haughtiest tones.The man looked at him suspiciously.“The Baron arrived this morning,”he said.“Ze Baron? Vat Baron? I am ze Baron!”“I shall fetch Sir Richard,”said the butler, turning away.[pg 164]Presently a stout florid gentleman, accompanied by three friends, all evidently very curious and amused about something, came to the door, and, to the poor Baron’s amazement and horror, he recognised in one of these none other than Mr Bunker, arrayed with much splendour in his own ornate shooting suit.“What do you want?”asked the florid gentleman, sternly.“Have I ze pleasure of addressing Sir Richard Brierley?”inquired the Baron, raising his hat and bowing profoundly.“You have.”“Zen I must tell you zat I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”“Gom, gom, my man!”interposed Mr Bunker.“I know you. Zis man, Sir Richard, has before annoyed me. He is vat you call impostor, cracked; he has vollowed me from Germany. Go avay, man!”“You are impostor! You scoundrel, Bonker!”shouted the wrathful Baron.“He is no Baron, Sir Richard! Ha! Vould you again deceive me, Bonker?”“You must lock him up, I fear,”said Mr Bunker.“To-morrow, my man, you vill see ze police.”So completely did the Baron lose his head that he became almost inarticulate with rage: his protestations, however, were not of the slightest avail. That morning Sir Richard had received a wire informing him that the Baron was coming by an earlier train than he had originally intended, and, since his arrival, the spurious nobleman had so ingratiated himself with his host that Sir[pg 165]Richard was filled with nothing but sympathy for him in his persecution. After a desperate struggle the unfortunate Rudolph was overpowered and conveyed in the undignified fashion known as the frog’s march to a room in a remote wing, there to pass the night under lock and key.“The scoundrelly German impostor!”exclaimed a young man, a fellow visitor of the Baron Bunker’s, to a tall, military-looking gentleman.Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.“It is a curious thing, Trelawney,”he replied, at length,“that the footman who attends the Baron should have told my man—who, of course, told me—that a number of his things are marked‘Francis Beveridge.’It is also rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the Baron’s movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had hatched a plot to impersonate him.”“But the man’s obviously mad.”“Must be,”said the colonel.The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend’s anecdotes as he could remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.“Five hondred vild boars,”he was saying,“eight hondred brace of partridges, many bears, and rabbits so[pg 166]moch zat it took five veeks to bury zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast again ve did go out——”But at that moment his attention was sharply arrested by a question of Lady Brierley’s.“Has Dr Escott arrived?”she asked.The Baron Bunker paused, and in spite of his habitual coolness, the observant colonel noticed that he started ever so slightly.“He came half an hour ago,”replied Sir Richard.“Ah, here he is.”As he spoke, a well-remembered figure came into the room, and after a welcome from his hostess, the dinner procession started.“Whoever is that tall fair man in front?”Dr Escott asked his partner as they crossed the hall.“Oh, that’s the Baron von Blitzenberg: such an amusing man! We are all in love with him already.”All through dinner the spurious Baron saw that Dr Escott’s eyes turned continually and curiously on him; yet never for an instant did his spirits droop or his conversation flag. Witty and charming as ever, he discoursed in his comical foreign accent to the amusement of all within hearing, and by the time the gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room, he had established the reputation of being the most delightful German ever seen. Yet Dr Escott grew more suspicious and bewildered, and Mr Bunker felt that he was being narrowly watched. The skill at billiards of a certain Francis Beveridge used to be the object of the doctor’s unbounded[pg 167]admiration, and it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel Savage and the Baron.That nobleman knew well the danger of displaying his old dexterity, and to the onlookers it soon became apparent that this branch of his education had been neglected. He not only missed the simplest shots, but seemed very ignorant of the rules of the English game, and in consequence he came in for a little good-natured chaff from Sir Richard and Trelawney. When the colonel’s score stood at 90 and the Baron had scarcely reached 25 Trelawney cried,“I’ll bet you ten to one you don’t win, Baron!”“What in?”asked the Baron, and the colonel noticed that for the first time be pronounced awcorrectly.“Sovereigns,”said Trelawney, gaily.The temptation was irresistible.“Done!”said the Baron. With a professional disregard for conventions he bolted the white into the middle pocket, leaving his own ball nicely beside the red. Down in its turn went the red, and Mr Bunker was on the spot. Three followed three in monotonous succession, Trelawney’s face growing longer and Dr Escott getting more and more excited, till with a smile Mr Bunker laid down his cue, a sensational winner.His victory was received in silence: Trelawney handed over two five-pound notes without a word, and the colonel returned to his whisky-and-soda. Dr Escott could contain himself no longer, and whispering something to Sir Richard, the two left the room.Imperturbable as ever, Mr Bunker talked gaily for a[pg 168]few minutes to an unresponsive audience, and then, remarking that he would join the ladies, left the room.A minute or two later Sir Richard, with an anxious face, returned with Dr Escott.“Where is the Baron?”he asked.“Gone to join the ladies,”replied Trelawney, adding under his breath,“d—— n him!”But the Baron was not with the ladies, nor, search the house as they might, was there a trace to be seen of that accomplished nobleman.“He has gone!”said Sir Richard.“What the deuce is the meaning of it?”exclaimed Trelawney.Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested,“Perhaps he wants to give the impostor an innings.”“Dr Escott, I think, can tell you,”replied the baronet.“Gentlemen,”said the doctor,“the man whom you have met as the Baron von Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I cannot say.”Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper, recounted the main events in Mr BeveridgealiasBunker’s brief career in town. On his exploits in St Egbert’s he felt some delicacy in touching, but at the end of what was after all only a[pg 169]fragmentary and one-sided narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever the departed gentleman’s failings, his talents at least were worthy of a better cause.

The Baron was a few minutes late in joining the party at lunch, and when he appeared he held an open letter in his hand. It was only the middle of the next day, and yet he could have sworn that last night he was comparatively whole-hearted, he felt so very much more in love already.

“Yet anozzer introdogtion has found me out,”he said as he took his seat.“I have here a letter of invitation vich I do not zink I shall accept.”

He threw an amorous glance at Lady Alicia, which her watchful mother rightly interpreted as indicating the cause of his intended refusal.

“Who is it this time?”asked Mr Bunker.

“Sir Richard Brierley of Brierley Park, Dampshire. Is zat how you pronounce it?”

“Sir Richard Brierley!”exclaimed the Countess;“why, Alicia and I are going to visit some relatives of ours who live only six miles from Brierley Park! When has he asked you, Baron?”

“Ze end of next week.”

“How odd! We are going down to Dampshire at the end of next week too. You must accept, Baron!”

“I shall!”exclaimed the overjoyed Baron.“Shall ve go, Bonker?”

“I’m not asked, I’m afraid.”

“Ach, bot zat is nozzing. I shall tell him.”

“As you please, Baron,”replied Mr Bunker, with a half glance at Lady Alicia.

The infatuated Baron had already begun to dread the inevitable hour of separation, and this piece of good fortune put him into the highest spirits. He felt so amiable towards the whole world that when the four went out for a stroll in the afternoon he lingered for a minute by Lady Grillyer’s side, and in that minute Mr Bunker and Lady Alicia were out of hail ahead. The Baron’s face fell.

“Shall I come down to this place?”said Mr Bunker.

“Would you like to?”

“I should be sorry,”he replied,“to part with—the Baron.”

Lady Alicia had expected a slightly different ending to this sentence, and so, to tell the truth, Mr Bunker had intended.

“Oh, if you can’t stay away from the Baron, you had better go.”

“It is certainly very hard to tear myself away from so charming a person as the Baron; perhaps you can feel for me?”

“I think he is very—nice.”

“He thinks you very nice.”

“Does he?”said Lady Alicia, with great indifference, and a moment later changed the subject.

Meanwhile the Baron was growing very uneasy. Of course it was quite natural that Mr Bunker should find it pleasant to walk for a few minutes by the side of the fairest creature on earth, and very possibly he was artfully[pg 149]pleading his friend’s cause. Yet the Baron felt uneasy. He remembered Mr Bunker’s invariable success with the gentler sex, his wit, his happy smile, and his good looks; and he began to wish most sincerely that these fascinations were being exercised on the now somewhat breathless Countess, for his efforts to overtake the pair in front had both annoyed and exhausted Lady Grillyer.

“Need we walk quite so fast, Baron?”she suggested; and Lady Grillyer’s suggestions were of the kind that are evidently meant to be acted upon.

“Ach, I did forged,”said the Baron, absently, and without further remark he slackened his pace for a few yards and then was off again.

“You were telling me,”gasped the Countess,“of something you thought of—doing when—you went—home.”

“Zo? Oh yes, it vas—Teufel! I do not remember.”

“Really, Baron,”said the Countess, decidedly,“I cannot go any farther at this rate. Let us turn. The others will be turning too, in a minute.”

In fact the unlucky Baron had clean run Lady Grillyer’s maternal instincts off their feet, and he suffered for it by seeing nothing of either his friend or his charmer for an hour and a half.

That night he accepted Sir Richard’s invitation, but said nothing whatever about bringing a friend.

For the next week Rudolph was in as many states of mind as there were hours in each day. He walked and rode and drove with Lady Alicia through the most romantic spots he could find. He purchased a large assortment of golf-clubs, and under her tuition essayed to play[pg 150]that most dangerous of games for mixed couples. In turn he broke every club in his set; the cavities he hewed in the links are still pointed out to the curious; but the heart of the Lady Alicia alone he seemed unable to damage. There was always a moment at which his courage failed him, and in that fatal pause she invariably changed the subject with the most innocent air in the world.

Every now and then the greenest spasms of jealousy would seize him. Why did she elect to disappear with Mr Bunker on the very morning that he had resolved should settle his fate? It is true he had made the same resolution every morning, but on this particular one he had no doubt he would have put his fate to the touch. And why on a certain moonlight evening was he left to the unsentimental company of the Countess?

He made no further reference to the visit to Brierley Park; in fact he shunned discussion of any kind with his quondam bosom friend.

The time slipped past, till the visit to St Egbert’s was almost at an end. On the day after to-morrow all four were going to leave (where Mr Bunker was going, his friend never troubled to inquire).

They sat together latish in the evening in the Baron’s room. That very afternoon Lady Alicia had spent more time in Mr Bunker’s society than in his, and the Baron felt that the hour had come for an explanation.

“Bonker, I haf a suspection!”he exclaimed, suddenly.“It is not I, bot you, who are ze friend to ze beautiful Lady Alicia. You are not doing me fair!”

“My dear Baron!”

“It is so: you are not doing me fair,”the Baron reiterated.

“My dear fellow,”replied Mr Bunker,“it is you are so much in love that you have lost your wonted courage. You don’t use your chances.”

“I do not get zem.”

“Nonsense, Baron! I haven’t spent one hour in Lady Alicia’s company to your twenty-four, and yet if I’d been matrimonially inclined I could have proposed twice over. You’ve had the chance of being accepted fifty times.”

“I haf not been accepted vunce,”said the Baron, moodily.

“Have you put the question?”

“I haf not dared.”

“Well, my dear Baron, whose fault is that?”

The Baron was silent.

“Ask her to-morrow.”

“No, Bonker,”said the Baron, sadly;“she treats me not like a lover. She talks of friendship. I do not vish a frient!”

Mr Bunker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.“You don’t think you have touched her heart?”he asked at length.

“I fear not.”

“You must try an infallible recipe for winning a woman’s heart. You must be in trouble.”

“In trouble!”

“I have tried it once myself, with great success.”

“Bot how?”

“You must fall ill.”

“Bot I cannot; I am too healthful, alas!”

Mr Bunker smiled artfully.“They come to tea in our rooms to-morrow, you know. By then, Baron, you must be laid up, ill or not, just as you please. A grain of Lady Alicia’s sympathy is worth more than a ton of even your wit.”

The standard chosen for the measurement of his wit escaped the Baron, the scheme delighted him.

“Ha, Bonker! schön! I tvig! Goot!”he cried.“How shall ve do?”

“Leave it to me.”

The Baron reflected, and his smile died away.

“Sopposing,”he said, slowly,“zey find out? Is it vise? Is it straight?”

“They can’t find out. They go the next morning, and what’s to prevent your making a quick recovery and pluckily going down to Brierley Park as the interesting convalescent? She will know that you’ve made a dangerous journey on her account.”

The Baron’s face cleared again.

“Let us try!”he said;“anyzing is better zan my present state. Bot, be careful, Bonker!”

“I shall take the most minute precautions,”replied Mr Bunker.

[pg 153]CHAPTER V.The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemed a little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend was as cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courage into Rudolph.Mr Bunker’s bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so he declared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.“Keep your room all morning,”he said,“and look as pale as you can. I shall make my room ready for you.”When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for a few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping. On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies’ way.When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat, the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation of astonishment,—and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full of flowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe,[pg 154]and fireplace were most artistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a large bottle labelled“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour,”and a medicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, most remarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker’s bath filled with water and alive with goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in a cage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the most delicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangement reflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.“Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?”he asked.“To show your love of nature.”“Vy so?”“There is nothing that pleases a woman more.”“My friend, you zink of everyzing!”exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.When four o’clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garments and got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change of attire, but on his friend’s expostulating against such a thorough precaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historic blacking of Othello.“Leave it all to me, my dear Baron,”he said, reassuringly, as he tucked him in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrival of their guests.They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the“dear Baron,”while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusually reserved.[pg 155]In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was the matter.“She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has found something out,”he said to himself.However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could have nothing to do with the Baron’s indisposition, for she displayed the most ingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedly at himself.“So sudden!”exclaimed the Countess.“It is rather sudden, but we’ll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,”said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by a cheerful manner.“Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?”demanded the countess.Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied,“Oh, dear, no! that is—at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to be alarmed.”“I amsosorry,”murmured Lady Alicia.Her mother looked at her approvingly.“Poor Baron!”she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.“So far from home!”sighed Mr Bunker.“And yet so cheerful through it all,”he added.“What did you say was the matter?”asked the Countess.Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain a little mystery round his friend’s malady.“The doctor hasn’t yet given a decided opinion,”he replied.“Can’t we do anything?”said Lady Alicia, softly.[pg 156]Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch of sympathy.“Poor Rudolph!”he exclaimed.“It would cheer him immensely, I know, and ease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a few minutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman’s.”The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant between those proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirable chance of completing the Baron’s conquest.“His relations are far away,”said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of the window.“We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?”suggested Lady Grillyer.“Yes, mamma,”replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprised their host.With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkened sick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a rueful semblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.“Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can I zank you?”“My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our hosthors de combat,”said the Countess, graciously.“Just when you wanted to go away too!”added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.“Alas!”he replied,“it is hard indeed.”[pg 157]“You must hurry up and get better,”said the Countess, in her most cheering sick-room manner.“It won’t do to disappoint the Brierleys, you know.”“You must come down forpartof the time,”smiled her daughter.These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one to the other with great concern.“Dear me!”said the Countess,“surely it isn’t so very serious, Mr Bunker; it isn’tinfectious, is it?”The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily,“Ach, no, it is bot a cold.”Lady Grillyer’s expression changed.“A cold!”she said.“Dear me, that can’t be so very serious, Baron.”“It is a bad cold,”said the Baron.By this time the ladies’ eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.“This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture,”said the Countess, examining the bottle.The Baron incautiously admitted it was.“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!”she exclaimed;[pg 158]“why, I never heard of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn’t seem so very bad, Baron.”“Ze doctor told me to take it so,”replied the Baron.The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion in her voice,“I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion.”The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.“In the Baron’s desire to spare your feelings,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely,“he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an ordinary cough-mixture.”“Oh,”said the Countess.Lady Alicia’s attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and suddenly she exclaimed,“Why, there are goldfish in it!”The Baron’s nerve was fast deserting him.“Ze doctor ordered zem,”he began—“I mean, I am fond of fishes.”The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned severely to his friend.“Whatis the matter with the Baron?”she demanded.Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.“The dog was destroyed at once,”he replied, with intense gravity.“It is therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter.”“The dog!”cried the two ladies together.“By this evening,”he continued,“we shall know the worst—or the best.”[pg 159]“What do you mean?”exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the bed.“I mean,”replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration,“that this bath is a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to look——”But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the Baron’s face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.“It’s beginning already!”she shrieked.“Alicia, my love, come quickly. How dare you expose us, sir?”“Calm yourselves. I assure you——”pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after them, but they were at the door before him.The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying,“No, no, it is false!”he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great splash among the startled goldfish.The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror that rapidly passed into intense indignation.“I am not ill!”he cried.“It vos zat rascal Bonker’s plot. He made me! I haf not hydrophobia!”Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles. For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then only remarking,“I have never been so insulted before,”she went out, and her daughter followed her.As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after[pg 160]roar of laughter, but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to his injured friend.“You rascal! you villain!”he shouted,“zis is ze end of our friendship, Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!”“My dear Baron,”gasped Mr Bunker,“I could not put such an inartistic end to so fine a joke for the world.”“You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad enoff for you!”With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:“After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you.”“False friend!”thundered the Baron.“My dear Baron!”said Mr Bunker, mildly,“whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you’d only left it all to me——”“Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!”And with that the infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.“I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day[pg 161]through the dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave.”“I am not surprised,”he replied.“Then it was false?”“As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn’t happen to be mine.”“Were youeverin the Church?”“Not to my personal knowledge.”“Yet you said you were?”“I was in an asylum.”She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with great amusement.“You have deceivedme,”she said,“and you have treated your other friend—who is far too good for you—disgracefully. Have you anything to say for yourself?”“Not a word,”he replied, cheerfully.“You mustnevertreat me again as—as I let you.”As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly,“I don’tsupposeI shall ever see you again. In future we are notlikelyto meet.”“The lady and the lunatic?”said he.“Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and better luck.”“Good-bye,”she answered coldly, and added as they parted,“my mother, of course, is extremely angry with you.”“There,”he said with a smile,“you see I still come in useful.”She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the hotel.[pg 162]“It seems to me,”he reflected,“that I shall have to set out on my adventures again alone.”

The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemed a little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend was as cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courage into Rudolph.

Mr Bunker’s bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so he declared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.

“Keep your room all morning,”he said,“and look as pale as you can. I shall make my room ready for you.”

When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for a few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping. On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies’ way.

When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat, the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation of astonishment,—and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full of flowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe,[pg 154]and fireplace were most artistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a large bottle labelled“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour,”and a medicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, most remarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker’s bath filled with water and alive with goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in a cage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the most delicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangement reflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.

The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.

“Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?”he asked.

“To show your love of nature.”

“Vy so?”

“There is nothing that pleases a woman more.”

“My friend, you zink of everyzing!”exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.

When four o’clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garments and got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change of attire, but on his friend’s expostulating against such a thorough precaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historic blacking of Othello.

“Leave it all to me, my dear Baron,”he said, reassuringly, as he tucked him in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrival of their guests.

They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the“dear Baron,”while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusually reserved.[pg 155]In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was the matter.

“She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has found something out,”he said to himself.

However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could have nothing to do with the Baron’s indisposition, for she displayed the most ingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedly at himself.

“So sudden!”exclaimed the Countess.

“It is rather sudden, but we’ll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,”said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by a cheerful manner.

“Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?”demanded the countess.

Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied,“Oh, dear, no! that is—at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to be alarmed.”

“I amsosorry,”murmured Lady Alicia.

Her mother looked at her approvingly.

“Poor Baron!”she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.

“So far from home!”sighed Mr Bunker.“And yet so cheerful through it all,”he added.

“What did you say was the matter?”asked the Countess.

Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain a little mystery round his friend’s malady.

“The doctor hasn’t yet given a decided opinion,”he replied.

“Can’t we do anything?”said Lady Alicia, softly.

Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch of sympathy.

“Poor Rudolph!”he exclaimed.“It would cheer him immensely, I know, and ease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a few minutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman’s.”

The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant between those proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirable chance of completing the Baron’s conquest.

“His relations are far away,”said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of the window.

“We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?”suggested Lady Grillyer.

“Yes, mamma,”replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprised their host.

With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkened sick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a rueful semblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.

“Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can I zank you?”

“My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our hosthors de combat,”said the Countess, graciously.

“Just when you wanted to go away too!”added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.

The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.

“Alas!”he replied,“it is hard indeed.”

“You must hurry up and get better,”said the Countess, in her most cheering sick-room manner.“It won’t do to disappoint the Brierleys, you know.”

“You must come down forpartof the time,”smiled her daughter.

These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.

Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one to the other with great concern.

“Dear me!”said the Countess,“surely it isn’t so very serious, Mr Bunker; it isn’tinfectious, is it?”

The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily,“Ach, no, it is bot a cold.”

Lady Grillyer’s expression changed.

“A cold!”she said.“Dear me, that can’t be so very serious, Baron.”

“It is a bad cold,”said the Baron.

By this time the ladies’ eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.

“This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture,”said the Countess, examining the bottle.

The Baron incautiously admitted it was.

“Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!”she exclaimed;[pg 158]“why, I never heard of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn’t seem so very bad, Baron.”

“Ze doctor told me to take it so,”replied the Baron.

The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion in her voice,“I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion.”

The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.

“In the Baron’s desire to spare your feelings,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely,“he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an ordinary cough-mixture.”

“Oh,”said the Countess.

Lady Alicia’s attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and suddenly she exclaimed,“Why, there are goldfish in it!”

The Baron’s nerve was fast deserting him.

“Ze doctor ordered zem,”he began—“I mean, I am fond of fishes.”

The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned severely to his friend.

“Whatis the matter with the Baron?”she demanded.

Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.

“The dog was destroyed at once,”he replied, with intense gravity.“It is therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter.”

“The dog!”cried the two ladies together.

“By this evening,”he continued,“we shall know the worst—or the best.”

“What do you mean?”exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the bed.

“I mean,”replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration,“that this bath is a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to look——”

But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the Baron’s face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.

“It’s beginning already!”she shrieked.“Alicia, my love, come quickly. How dare you expose us, sir?”

“Calm yourselves. I assure you——”pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after them, but they were at the door before him.

The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying,“No, no, it is false!”he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great splash among the startled goldfish.

The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror that rapidly passed into intense indignation.

“I am not ill!”he cried.“It vos zat rascal Bonker’s plot. He made me! I haf not hydrophobia!”

Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles. For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then only remarking,“I have never been so insulted before,”she went out, and her daughter followed her.

As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after[pg 160]roar of laughter, but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to his injured friend.

“You rascal! you villain!”he shouted,“zis is ze end of our friendship, Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!”

“My dear Baron,”gasped Mr Bunker,“I could not put such an inartistic end to so fine a joke for the world.”

“You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad enoff for you!”

With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:“After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you.”

“False friend!”thundered the Baron.

“My dear Baron!”said Mr Bunker, mildly,“whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you’d only left it all to me——”

“Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!”And with that the infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.

As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.

She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.

“I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day[pg 161]through the dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave.”

“I am not surprised,”he replied.

“Then it was false?”

“As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn’t happen to be mine.”

“Were youeverin the Church?”

“Not to my personal knowledge.”

“Yet you said you were?”

“I was in an asylum.”

She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with great amusement.

“You have deceivedme,”she said,“and you have treated your other friend—who is far too good for you—disgracefully. Have you anything to say for yourself?”

“Not a word,”he replied, cheerfully.

“You mustnevertreat me again as—as I let you.”

As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly,“I don’tsupposeI shall ever see you again. In future we are notlikelyto meet.”

“The lady and the lunatic?”said he.“Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and better luck.”

“Good-bye,”she answered coldly, and added as they parted,“my mother, of course, is extremely angry with you.”

“There,”he said with a smile,“you see I still come in useful.”

She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the hotel.

“It seems to me,”he reflected,“that I shall have to set out on my adventures again alone.”

CHAPTER VI.The Baron’s natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word, and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied curtly, as he went to the door,“Ze 5.30.”“And where do you go now?”“Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone.”“Good-bye, then, Baron,”said Mr Bunker.“I think I shall go up to town.”“Go, zen,”replied the Baron, opening the door;“I haf no furzer vish to see a treacherousspongezat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost takes money.”He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would have seen a look in Mr Bunker’s face that he had never seen before. He half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought with his lips very tight set.All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the Baron had known.“I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”he said to himself;“but the weapons I shall choose myself.”He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a[pg 163]wire, and then with considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the hotel.* * * * *When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron’s directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them to be found.“Ze rascal!”he muttered;“I did not zink he was zief as well.”It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley station in anything but an amiable frame of mind. There, to his great annoyance and surprise, he found no signs of Sir Richard’s carriage; there were no stables near, and, after fuming for some time on the platform, he was forced to leave his luggage with the station-master and proceed on foot to Brierley Park.He arrived shortly before seven o’clock, after a dark and muddy tramp, and, still swearing under his breath, pulled the bell with indignant energy.“I am ze Baron von Blitzenberg, bot zere vas no carriage at ze station,”he informed the butler in his haughtiest tones.The man looked at him suspiciously.“The Baron arrived this morning,”he said.“Ze Baron? Vat Baron? I am ze Baron!”“I shall fetch Sir Richard,”said the butler, turning away.[pg 164]Presently a stout florid gentleman, accompanied by three friends, all evidently very curious and amused about something, came to the door, and, to the poor Baron’s amazement and horror, he recognised in one of these none other than Mr Bunker, arrayed with much splendour in his own ornate shooting suit.“What do you want?”asked the florid gentleman, sternly.“Have I ze pleasure of addressing Sir Richard Brierley?”inquired the Baron, raising his hat and bowing profoundly.“You have.”“Zen I must tell you zat I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”“Gom, gom, my man!”interposed Mr Bunker.“I know you. Zis man, Sir Richard, has before annoyed me. He is vat you call impostor, cracked; he has vollowed me from Germany. Go avay, man!”“You are impostor! You scoundrel, Bonker!”shouted the wrathful Baron.“He is no Baron, Sir Richard! Ha! Vould you again deceive me, Bonker?”“You must lock him up, I fear,”said Mr Bunker.“To-morrow, my man, you vill see ze police.”So completely did the Baron lose his head that he became almost inarticulate with rage: his protestations, however, were not of the slightest avail. That morning Sir Richard had received a wire informing him that the Baron was coming by an earlier train than he had originally intended, and, since his arrival, the spurious nobleman had so ingratiated himself with his host that Sir[pg 165]Richard was filled with nothing but sympathy for him in his persecution. After a desperate struggle the unfortunate Rudolph was overpowered and conveyed in the undignified fashion known as the frog’s march to a room in a remote wing, there to pass the night under lock and key.“The scoundrelly German impostor!”exclaimed a young man, a fellow visitor of the Baron Bunker’s, to a tall, military-looking gentleman.Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.“It is a curious thing, Trelawney,”he replied, at length,“that the footman who attends the Baron should have told my man—who, of course, told me—that a number of his things are marked‘Francis Beveridge.’It is also rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the Baron’s movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had hatched a plot to impersonate him.”“But the man’s obviously mad.”“Must be,”said the colonel.The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend’s anecdotes as he could remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.“Five hondred vild boars,”he was saying,“eight hondred brace of partridges, many bears, and rabbits so[pg 166]moch zat it took five veeks to bury zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast again ve did go out——”But at that moment his attention was sharply arrested by a question of Lady Brierley’s.“Has Dr Escott arrived?”she asked.The Baron Bunker paused, and in spite of his habitual coolness, the observant colonel noticed that he started ever so slightly.“He came half an hour ago,”replied Sir Richard.“Ah, here he is.”As he spoke, a well-remembered figure came into the room, and after a welcome from his hostess, the dinner procession started.“Whoever is that tall fair man in front?”Dr Escott asked his partner as they crossed the hall.“Oh, that’s the Baron von Blitzenberg: such an amusing man! We are all in love with him already.”All through dinner the spurious Baron saw that Dr Escott’s eyes turned continually and curiously on him; yet never for an instant did his spirits droop or his conversation flag. Witty and charming as ever, he discoursed in his comical foreign accent to the amusement of all within hearing, and by the time the gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room, he had established the reputation of being the most delightful German ever seen. Yet Dr Escott grew more suspicious and bewildered, and Mr Bunker felt that he was being narrowly watched. The skill at billiards of a certain Francis Beveridge used to be the object of the doctor’s unbounded[pg 167]admiration, and it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel Savage and the Baron.That nobleman knew well the danger of displaying his old dexterity, and to the onlookers it soon became apparent that this branch of his education had been neglected. He not only missed the simplest shots, but seemed very ignorant of the rules of the English game, and in consequence he came in for a little good-natured chaff from Sir Richard and Trelawney. When the colonel’s score stood at 90 and the Baron had scarcely reached 25 Trelawney cried,“I’ll bet you ten to one you don’t win, Baron!”“What in?”asked the Baron, and the colonel noticed that for the first time be pronounced awcorrectly.“Sovereigns,”said Trelawney, gaily.The temptation was irresistible.“Done!”said the Baron. With a professional disregard for conventions he bolted the white into the middle pocket, leaving his own ball nicely beside the red. Down in its turn went the red, and Mr Bunker was on the spot. Three followed three in monotonous succession, Trelawney’s face growing longer and Dr Escott getting more and more excited, till with a smile Mr Bunker laid down his cue, a sensational winner.His victory was received in silence: Trelawney handed over two five-pound notes without a word, and the colonel returned to his whisky-and-soda. Dr Escott could contain himself no longer, and whispering something to Sir Richard, the two left the room.Imperturbable as ever, Mr Bunker talked gaily for a[pg 168]few minutes to an unresponsive audience, and then, remarking that he would join the ladies, left the room.A minute or two later Sir Richard, with an anxious face, returned with Dr Escott.“Where is the Baron?”he asked.“Gone to join the ladies,”replied Trelawney, adding under his breath,“d—— n him!”But the Baron was not with the ladies, nor, search the house as they might, was there a trace to be seen of that accomplished nobleman.“He has gone!”said Sir Richard.“What the deuce is the meaning of it?”exclaimed Trelawney.Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested,“Perhaps he wants to give the impostor an innings.”“Dr Escott, I think, can tell you,”replied the baronet.“Gentlemen,”said the doctor,“the man whom you have met as the Baron von Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I cannot say.”Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper, recounted the main events in Mr BeveridgealiasBunker’s brief career in town. On his exploits in St Egbert’s he felt some delicacy in touching, but at the end of what was after all only a[pg 169]fragmentary and one-sided narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever the departed gentleman’s failings, his talents at least were worthy of a better cause.

The Baron’s natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word, and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied curtly, as he went to the door,“Ze 5.30.”

“And where do you go now?”

“Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone.”

“Good-bye, then, Baron,”said Mr Bunker.“I think I shall go up to town.”

“Go, zen,”replied the Baron, opening the door;“I haf no furzer vish to see a treacherousspongezat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost takes money.”

He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would have seen a look in Mr Bunker’s face that he had never seen before. He half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought with his lips very tight set.

All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the Baron had known.

“I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”he said to himself;“but the weapons I shall choose myself.”

He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a[pg 163]wire, and then with considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the hotel.

* * * * *

When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron’s directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them to be found.

“Ze rascal!”he muttered;“I did not zink he was zief as well.”

It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley station in anything but an amiable frame of mind. There, to his great annoyance and surprise, he found no signs of Sir Richard’s carriage; there were no stables near, and, after fuming for some time on the platform, he was forced to leave his luggage with the station-master and proceed on foot to Brierley Park.

He arrived shortly before seven o’clock, after a dark and muddy tramp, and, still swearing under his breath, pulled the bell with indignant energy.

“I am ze Baron von Blitzenberg, bot zere vas no carriage at ze station,”he informed the butler in his haughtiest tones.

The man looked at him suspiciously.

“The Baron arrived this morning,”he said.

“Ze Baron? Vat Baron? I am ze Baron!”

“I shall fetch Sir Richard,”said the butler, turning away.

Presently a stout florid gentleman, accompanied by three friends, all evidently very curious and amused about something, came to the door, and, to the poor Baron’s amazement and horror, he recognised in one of these none other than Mr Bunker, arrayed with much splendour in his own ornate shooting suit.

“What do you want?”asked the florid gentleman, sternly.

“Have I ze pleasure of addressing Sir Richard Brierley?”inquired the Baron, raising his hat and bowing profoundly.

“You have.”

“Zen I must tell you zat I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”

“Gom, gom, my man!”interposed Mr Bunker.“I know you. Zis man, Sir Richard, has before annoyed me. He is vat you call impostor, cracked; he has vollowed me from Germany. Go avay, man!”

“You are impostor! You scoundrel, Bonker!”shouted the wrathful Baron.“He is no Baron, Sir Richard! Ha! Vould you again deceive me, Bonker?”

“You must lock him up, I fear,”said Mr Bunker.“To-morrow, my man, you vill see ze police.”

So completely did the Baron lose his head that he became almost inarticulate with rage: his protestations, however, were not of the slightest avail. That morning Sir Richard had received a wire informing him that the Baron was coming by an earlier train than he had originally intended, and, since his arrival, the spurious nobleman had so ingratiated himself with his host that Sir[pg 165]Richard was filled with nothing but sympathy for him in his persecution. After a desperate struggle the unfortunate Rudolph was overpowered and conveyed in the undignified fashion known as the frog’s march to a room in a remote wing, there to pass the night under lock and key.

“The scoundrelly German impostor!”exclaimed a young man, a fellow visitor of the Baron Bunker’s, to a tall, military-looking gentleman.

Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.

“It is a curious thing, Trelawney,”he replied, at length,“that the footman who attends the Baron should have told my man—who, of course, told me—that a number of his things are marked‘Francis Beveridge.’It is also rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the Baron’s movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had hatched a plot to impersonate him.”

“But the man’s obviously mad.”

“Must be,”said the colonel.

The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend’s anecdotes as he could remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.

“Five hondred vild boars,”he was saying,“eight hondred brace of partridges, many bears, and rabbits so[pg 166]moch zat it took five veeks to bury zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast again ve did go out——”

But at that moment his attention was sharply arrested by a question of Lady Brierley’s.

“Has Dr Escott arrived?”she asked.

The Baron Bunker paused, and in spite of his habitual coolness, the observant colonel noticed that he started ever so slightly.

“He came half an hour ago,”replied Sir Richard.“Ah, here he is.”

As he spoke, a well-remembered figure came into the room, and after a welcome from his hostess, the dinner procession started.

“Whoever is that tall fair man in front?”Dr Escott asked his partner as they crossed the hall.

“Oh, that’s the Baron von Blitzenberg: such an amusing man! We are all in love with him already.”

All through dinner the spurious Baron saw that Dr Escott’s eyes turned continually and curiously on him; yet never for an instant did his spirits droop or his conversation flag. Witty and charming as ever, he discoursed in his comical foreign accent to the amusement of all within hearing, and by the time the gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room, he had established the reputation of being the most delightful German ever seen. Yet Dr Escott grew more suspicious and bewildered, and Mr Bunker felt that he was being narrowly watched. The skill at billiards of a certain Francis Beveridge used to be the object of the doctor’s unbounded[pg 167]admiration, and it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel Savage and the Baron.

That nobleman knew well the danger of displaying his old dexterity, and to the onlookers it soon became apparent that this branch of his education had been neglected. He not only missed the simplest shots, but seemed very ignorant of the rules of the English game, and in consequence he came in for a little good-natured chaff from Sir Richard and Trelawney. When the colonel’s score stood at 90 and the Baron had scarcely reached 25 Trelawney cried,“I’ll bet you ten to one you don’t win, Baron!”

“What in?”asked the Baron, and the colonel noticed that for the first time be pronounced awcorrectly.

“Sovereigns,”said Trelawney, gaily.

The temptation was irresistible.

“Done!”said the Baron. With a professional disregard for conventions he bolted the white into the middle pocket, leaving his own ball nicely beside the red. Down in its turn went the red, and Mr Bunker was on the spot. Three followed three in monotonous succession, Trelawney’s face growing longer and Dr Escott getting more and more excited, till with a smile Mr Bunker laid down his cue, a sensational winner.

His victory was received in silence: Trelawney handed over two five-pound notes without a word, and the colonel returned to his whisky-and-soda. Dr Escott could contain himself no longer, and whispering something to Sir Richard, the two left the room.

Imperturbable as ever, Mr Bunker talked gaily for a[pg 168]few minutes to an unresponsive audience, and then, remarking that he would join the ladies, left the room.

A minute or two later Sir Richard, with an anxious face, returned with Dr Escott.

“Where is the Baron?”he asked.

“Gone to join the ladies,”replied Trelawney, adding under his breath,“d—— n him!”

But the Baron was not with the ladies, nor, search the house as they might, was there a trace to be seen of that accomplished nobleman.

“He has gone!”said Sir Richard.

“What the deuce is the meaning of it?”exclaimed Trelawney.

Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested,“Perhaps he wants to give the impostor an innings.”

“Dr Escott, I think, can tell you,”replied the baronet.

“Gentlemen,”said the doctor,“the man whom you have met as the Baron von Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I cannot say.”

Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper, recounted the main events in Mr BeveridgealiasBunker’s brief career in town. On his exploits in St Egbert’s he felt some delicacy in touching, but at the end of what was after all only a[pg 169]fragmentary and one-sided narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever the departed gentleman’s failings, his talents at least were worthy of a better cause.

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