CHAPTER I
'Upon my word, this is--' He hesitated, then chose another form of words with which to conclude his sentence. 'This is extraordinary.'
He allowed the paper to flutter from between his fingers, stood staring at nothing, then, stooping, picked up the sheet of blue post from where it had fallen at his feet.
'Extraordinary!' he repeated.
He regarded it and handled it as if it had been some uncanny thing--though, on the face of it, it was nothing of the kind. It was a formal letter addressed to 'Guy Holland, Esq., 37A Craven Street, W.C.' It began 'Dear Sir,' and ended 'Yr. obedt. servant, SAML. COLLYER.' Between the beginning and the end it informed him that his uncle, George Burton, had died at Nice on February 23, and that the writer would feel obliged if he would call upon him at his earliest possible convenience.
'I wonder if I saw him die?' Mr Holland knit his brows as he asked himself the question. 'How could I, when I was in Mashonaland and he was in Nice? Absurd!'
He laughed, as it has been written, 'hollowly'; the laugh of uneasiness rather than mirth.
Then he went and saw the lady.
She was waiting on a seat by a certain piece of water in Regent's Park. She must have had eyes behind, because, although she was sitting with her back to him, directly he stepped upon the grass she sprang up, and, as if she had been observing him all the time, went to him at something very like a run. He advanced at quick step. They met in the middle of the grass plot, contrary to regulations, which forbid people to walk upon the grass. They each gave two hands, and that with an air which suggested that if that had not been a public place they would have given each other something else as well.
'Guy!' she exclaimed. 'I thought you were the other side of the world. What a time you've been!'
'Coming from the other side of the world? or from Craven Street? It is some distance from Craven Street to Regent's Park.'
'You are in Craven Street, are you? What's it mean? You're looking well--sort of coppery colour; it suits you.'
'That's the air of the veldt; it burnishes a man's skin. You're looking sweet. I say, it's awfully hard lines that I can't kiss you. Mayn't I--just a little one?'
'In broad daylight, in Regent's Park, with a hundred pairs of eyes observing us from Hamilton Terrace? Thank you; some other day. When I had your note--what a note!"Meet me at the old place at noon"--I wondered who I was to meet, you or your ghost. As a matter of fact, I had a most important engagement--just at noon; but I put it off on purpos
