FROM AN IDEAL

'If you please, sir,' said Simon Shawn, when he brought Hugo's tea the
next morning, 'I am informed that a man has secreted himself on the
summit of the dome.'

Hugo, lying moveless on his back, and ignoring even the tea, made no
reply to this speech. He was still repeating to himself the following
words, which, by constant iteration, had assumed in his mind the force
and emphasis of italics: _'So grateful for your sympathetic help. When
next I see you, if there is opportunity, I will try to thank you.
Meantime, all is well with me. Please trouble no more. And forget.'_
Such were the exact terms of the note from Camilla Payne delivered to
him by Albert Shawn. Of course, he knew it by heart. It was scribbled
very hastily in pencil on half a sheet of paper, and it bore no
signature, not even a solitary initial. If it had not been handed to
Albert by Camilla in person, Hugo might have doubted its genuineness,
and might have spent the night in transgressing the law of trespass and
other laws, in order to be assured of a woman's safety. But under the
circumstances he could not doubt its genuineness. What he doubted was
its exact import. And what he objected to in it was its lack of
information. He wished ardently to know whether Ravengar and Tudor, or
either of them, had been wounded, and if so, by whose revolver; for he
could not be certain that it was Camilla who had fired. An examination
of the revolver which he and she had passed from hand to hand had shown
two chambers undischarged. He wished ardently to know how she had
contrived to settle her account with Tudor, and yet get away in Tudor's
brougham, unless it was by a wile worthy of the diplomacy of a Queen
Elizabeth. And he wished ardently to understand a hundred and one other
things concerning Camilla, Tudor, and Ravengar, and the permutations and
combinations of these three, which offered apparently insoluble problems
to his brain. Nevertheless, there was one assurance which seemed to him
to emerge clearly from the note, and to atone for its vagueness--a
vagueness, however, perfectly excusable, he reflected, having regard to
the conditions in which it was written--namely, that Camilla intended to
arrive, as usual, in Department 42 that morning. What significance could
be attached to the phrase, 'When next I see you, _if there is
opportunity_,' unless it signified that she anticipated seeing him next
in the shop and in the course of business? Moreo