"Mr. Langholm," pursued Venn, "is the hero of that paragraph"--Langholm
kicked him under the table--"that--that paragraph about his last book,
you know. Severino, Langholm, is the best pianist we have had in the
club since I have been a member, and you will say the same yourself in
another minute. He always plays to us when he drops in to dine, and you
may think yourself lucky that he has dropped in to-night."
"But where does the coincidence come in?" asked Langholm, as the young
fellow returned to the piano with a rather sad shake of the head.
"What!" cried Venn, below his breath; "do you mean to say you are a
friend of Mrs. Minchin's, or whatever her name is now, and that you
never heard of Severino?"
"No," replied Langholm, his heart in an instantaneous flutter. "Who is
he?"
"The man she wanted to nurse the night her husband was murdered--the
cause of the final row between them! His name was kept out of the
papers, but that's the man."
Langholm sat back in his chair. To have spent a summer's day in stolid
search for traces of this man, only to be introduced to the man himself
by purest chance in the evening! It was, indeed, difficult to believe;
nor was persuasion on the point followed by the proper degree of
gratitude in Langholm for a transcendent stroke of fortune.
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