Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/103

 "I suppose," whispered Mrs. Weatherby, "we must help him, but I don't like people who wander about in the night." She moved to the window and called down, "Young man, turn the light on your face."

"Old Pietro is with him," murmured Miss Fosdick hopefully.

The stranger did as commanded. He was not a young man though his figure was trim and slender. He might have been forty-five. He was distinguished and certainly handsome in a dark, almost Moorish fashion. The humor of the situation had caused him to grin.

Trembling with excitement, Miss Fosdick, still carrying the hair-brush absentmindedly in one hand, took up a candle and clattered down the stone stairs in her slippers. She was so excited that she even forgot to be afraid of the garden and made her way without a tremor through the tunnel that led into the courtyard. There the stranger met her murmuring a thousand apologies made with all the overwrought extravagance of Latin courtesy. He was dressed in beige tweeds and wore a cap and yellow buckskin gloves. The wind from Africa had died away at last and the candle burned in the still air without a flicker. By its yellow light Miss Fosdick saw that he was older than she had believed and of an aspect even more romantic than she had imagined. Thinking in terms of Aunt Henrietta's speech she told herself that it was Force that he had