Signor Vanni, full of importance and inwardly delighted at the accident which had placed the hero of the hour in his hands, gathered up his portfolio and descended nimbly on to the platform with a suave:
"If Monsieur le Marquis will deign to wait?"
He was off, crying lustily for the station-master.
McTaggart drew out his watch. It was nearly four o'clock. He felt hungry but his weariness had passed, killed by his present sense of excitement. The air, crisp and sweet, blew in his face like frozen honey, the night was still; and through the dark he could just make out the sheltering walls rising black and sheer with a crenellated edge against the indigo of the sky, where a single luminous star was poised.
The lawyer returned with a bowing superintendent, two bowing servants and a bowing
