“Excuse me one moment, Mr. Munting,” said he.
A row in the Academy would have its points from the point of view of my Press agent, but I was not anxious for it. However, I asked Elizabeth to wait a moment for me, and stepped aside with Harrison.
“I think,” said he, “I am afraid—that is, I feel I owe you an apology, Mr. Munting.”
“Oh!” I said. “That’s all right. I mean, it doesn’t matter at all.” Then I pulled myself together. “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s my fault, really. I ought not to have come. I might have known you would be here.”
“It’s not that,” he said, determined to face it. “The fact is—I fear I did you an injustice that—er—that last time we met. Er—the unfortunate woman who made all the trouble—”
“Miss Milsom?” I asked; not because I didn’t know, but to help him on with his sentence.
“Yes. She has had to take a rest—in fact, to undergo a course of treatment—in fact, she is in a kind of nursing-home.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. There can really be no doubt that the poor creature is—well, demented is perhaps an unkind way of putting it. Perhaps we had better say, unbalanced.”
I expressed sympathy.
“Yes. From what my wife tells me—and Mr. Lathom—and from what I hear from the poor creature’s relatives, I now feel no doubt at all that the—the accusation, you know—was entirely unfounded. A nervous delusion, of course.”