By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with
the dead, for her striking face assumed a more normal expression
of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she
exclaimed sharply,--
"Oh, so you've come at last, Mr. Vivian! And pray what have you to
say? What about the rashes? And what is this danger that threatens Mr.
Sagittarius?"
"We'd better take the danger first, my dear," said Mr. Sagittarius, with
grave anxiety.
"Very well. Not that it should be the most important to one who wears
the _toga virilibus_!"
"True, my love. Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think,
and set me more at ease. Well, sir?"
Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir
Tiglath's declarations, and he therefore replied,--
"I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt
that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for
five-and-forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention
of--of--"
"Oh what, sir, of what?" said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.
"Of doing him violence," replied the Prophet, impressively.
"What is the gent's name?" said Mr.
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