"Well," thought he, "this is the first dummy ever took me in. What a fool the man must be! Why he could have bought books with ideas in them for the price of these impostors."Still Peggy did not come. So he went to a door opposite, and at right angles to the farthest window, meaning to open it and inquire after her:
lo and behold he found this was a knob without a door. There had been a door but it was blocked up. The only available door on that side had a keyhole, but no latch, nor handle.
Alfred was a prisoner.
He no sooner found this out than he began to hammer on the door with his fists, and call out.
This had a good effect, for he heard a woman's dress come rustling: a key was inserted, and the door opened. But, instead of Peggy, it was a tall well-formed woman of thirty, with dark grey eyes, and straightish eyebrows massive and black as jet. She was dressed quietly but like a lady. Mrs. Archbold, for that was her name, cast on Alfred one of those swift, all-devouring glances, with which her sex contrive to take in the features, character, and dress of a person from head to foot, and smiled most graciously on him, revealing a fine white set of teeth. She begged him to take a seat; and sat down herself. She had left the door ajar.
"I came to see Margaret Black," said Alfred.
"Margaret Black? There is no such person here," was the quiet reply.
"What! has she gone away so early as this?"Mrs. Archbold smiled, and said soothingly, "Are you sure she ever existed; except in your imagination?"Alfred laughed at this, and showed her Peggy's letter. She ran her eye over it, and returned it him with a smile of a different kind, half pitying, half cynical. But presently resuming her former manner, "Iremember now," said she in dulcet tones: "the anxiety you are labouring under is about a large sum of money, is it not?""What, can you give me any information about it?" said he, surprised.
"I think we can render you great _service_ in the matter, infinite service, Mr. Hardie," was the reply, in a voice of very honey.
Alfred was amazed at this. "You say you don't know Peggy! And yet you seem to know me. I never saw you in my life before, madam; what on earth is the meaning of all this?""Calm yourself," said Mrs. Archbold, laying a white and finely moulded hand upon his arm, "there is no wonder nor mystery in the matter: _you were expected._"The colour rushed into Alfred's face, and he started to his feet; some vague instinct told him to be gone from this place.
The lady fixed her eyes on him, put her hand to a gold chain that was round her neck, and drew out of her white bosom, not a locket, nor a key, but an ivory whistle. Keeping her eye steadily fixed on Alfred, she breathed softly into the whistle. Then two men stepped quietly in at the door; one was a short, stout snob, with great red whiskers, the other a wiry gentleman with iron-grey hair. The latter spoke to Alfred, and began to coax him. If Mrs. Archbold was honey, this personage was treacle. "Be calm, my dear young gentleman; don't agitate yourself. You have been sent here for your good; and that you may be cured, and so restored to society and to your anxious and affectionate friends.""What are you talking about? what do you mean?" cried Alfred; "are you mad?""No, _we_ are not," said the short snob, with a coarse laugh.
"Have done with this fooling, then," said Alfred sharply; "the person Icame to see is not here; good morning."The short man instantly stepped to the door, and put his back to it. The other said calmly, " No, Mr. Hardie, you cannot leave the house at present.""Can't I? Why not, pray?" said Alfred, drawing his breath hard: and his eyes began to glitter dangerously.
"We are responsible for your safety: we have force at hand if necessary;pray do not compel us to summon it.""Why, where am I?" said Alfred, panting now; "is this a prison?""No, no," said Mrs. Archbold soothingly: "it is a place where you will be cured of your headaches and your delusions, and subjected to no unnecessary pain nor restraint.""Oh, bother," said the short snob brutally. "Why make two bites of a cherry? You are in my asylum, young gentleman, and a devilish lucky thing for you."At this fatal word, "asylum," Alfred uttered a cry of horror and despair, and his eyes roved wildly round the room in search of escape. But the windows of the room, though outside the house they seemed to come as low as those of the drawing-room, were partly bricked-up within, and made just too high to be reached without a chair. And his captors read that wild glance directly, and the doctor whipped one chair away, while Mrs.
Archbold, with more tact, sat quietly down on the other. They all three blew their whistles shrilly.
Alfred uttered an oath and rushed at the door; but heard heavy feet running on stone passages towards the whistles, and felt he had no chance out that way: his dilating eye fell upon the handle of the old defunct door: he made a high leap, came down with his left foot on its knob of brass, and, though of course he could not stand on it, contrived to spring from it slap at the window--Mrs. Archbold screamed--he broke the glass with his shoulder, and tore and kicked the woodwork, and squeezed through on to a stone ledge outside, and stood there bleeding and panting, just as half a dozen keepers burst into the room at his back. He was more than twenty feet from the ground: to leap down was death or mutilation: he saw the flyman driving away. He yelled to him, "Hy! hy!
