The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman

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СКАЧАТЬ “and I must run off now, as I have to look in at my chambers.”

      “How shall we go?” asked Thorndyke, as his colleague vanished through the doorway. “Polton has gone for a four-wheeler, but it won’t hold us all.”

      “It will hold four of us,” said Reuben, “and Dr. Jervis will bring Juliet; won’t you, Jervis?”

      The request rather took me aback, considering the circumstances, but I was conscious, nevertheless, of an unreasonable thrill of pleasure and answered with alacrity: “If Miss Gibson will allow me, I shall be very delighted.” My delight was, apparently, not shared by Juliet, to judge by the uncomfortable blush that spread over her face. She made no objection, however, but merely replied rather coldly: “Well, as we can’t sit on the roof of the cab, we had better go by ourselves.”

      The crowd having by this time presumably cleared off, we all took our way downstairs. The cab was waiting at the kerb, surrounded by a group of spectators, who cheered Reuben as he appeared at the doorway, and we saw our friends enter and drive away. Then we turned and walked quickly down the Old Bailey towards Ludgate Hill.

      “Shall we take a hansom?” I asked.

      “No; let us walk,” replied Juliet; “a little fresh air will do us good after that musty, horrible court. It all seems like a dream, and yet what a relief—oh! What a relief it is.”

      “It is rather like the awakening from a nightmare to find the morning sun shining,” I rejoined.

      “Yes; that is just what it is like,” she agreed; “but I still feel dazed and shaken.”

      We turned presently down New Bridge Street, towards the Embankment, walking side by side without speaking, and I could not help comparing, with some bitterness, our present stiff and distant relations with the intimacy and comradeship that had existed before the miserable incident of our last meeting.

      “You don’t look so jubilant over your success as I should have expected,” she said at length, with a critical glance at me; “but I expect you are really very proud and delighted, aren’t you?”

      “Delighted, yes; not proud. Why should I be proud? I have only played jackal, and even that I have done very badly.”

      “That is hardly a fair statement of the facts,” she rejoined, with another quick, inquisitive look at me; “but you are in low spirits today—which is not at all like you. Is it not so?”

      “I am afraid I am a selfish, egotistical brute,” was my gloomy reply. “I ought to be as gay and joyful as everyone else today, whereas the fact is that I am chafing over my own petty troubles. You see, now that this case is finished, my engagement with Dr. Thorndyke terminates automatically, and I relapse into my old life—a dreary repetition of journeying amongst strangers—and the prospect is not inspiriting. This has been a time of bitter trial to you, but to me it has been a green oasis in the desert of a colourless, monotonous life. I have enjoyed the companionship of a most lovable man, whom I admire and respect above all other men, and with him have moved in scenes full of colour and interest. And I have made one other friend whom I am loth to see fade out of my life, as she seems likely to do.”

      “If you mean me,” said Juliet, “I may say that it will be your own fault if I fade out of your life. I can never forget all that you have done for us, your loyalty to Reuben, your enthusiasm in his cause, to say nothing of your many kindnesses to me. And, as to your having done your work badly, you wrong yourself grievously. I recognised in the evidence by which Reuben was cleared today how much you had done, in filling in the details, towards making the case complete and convincing. I shall always feel that we owe you a debt of the deepest gratitude, and so will Reuben, and so, perhaps, more than either of us, will someone else.”

      “And who is that?” I asked, though with no great interest. The gratitude of the family was a matter of little consequence to me.

      “Well, it is no secret now,” replied Juliet. “I mean the girl whom Reuben is going to marry. What is the matter, Dr. Jervis?” she added, in a tone of surprise.

      We were passing through the gate that leads from the Em­bankment to Middle Temple Lane, and I had stopped dead under the archway, laying a detaining hand upon her arm and gazing at her in utter amazement.

      “The girl that Reuben is going to marry!” I repeated. “Why, I had always taken it for granted that he was going to marry you.”

      “But I told you, most explicitly, that was not so!” she ex­claimed with some impatience.

      “I know you did,” I admitted ruefully; “but I thought—well, I imagined that things had, perhaps, not gone quite smoothly and—”

      “Did you suppose that if I had cared for a man, and that man had been under a cloud, I should have denied the relation or pretended that we were merely friends?” she demanded indignantly.

      “I am sure you wouldn’t,” I replied hastily. “I was a fool, an idiot—by Jove, what an idiot I have been!”

      “It was certainly very silly of you,” she admitted; but there was a gentleness in her tone that took away all bitterness from the reproach.

      “The reason of the secrecy was this,” she continued; “they became engaged the very night before Reuben was arrested, and, when he heard of the charge against him, he insisted that no one should be told unless, and until, he was fully acquitted. I was the only person who was in their confidence, and as I was sworn to secrecy, of course I couldn’t tell you; nor did I suppose that the matter would interest you. Why should it?”

      “Imbecile that I am,” I murmured. “If I had only known!”

      “Well, if you had known,” said she; “what difference could it have made to you?”

      This question she asked without looking at me, but I noted that her cheek had grown a shade paler.

      “Only this,” I answered. “That I should have been spared many a day and night of needless self-reproach and misery.”

      “But why?” she asked, still keeping her face averted. “What had you to reproach yourself with?”

      “A great deal,” I answered, “if you consider my supposed position. If you think of me as the trusted agent of a man, helpless and deeply wronged—a man whose undeserved misfortunes made every demand upon chivalry and generosity; if you think of me as being called upon to protect and carry comfort to the woman whom I regarded as, virtually, that man’s betrothed wife; and then if you think of me as proceeding straightway, before I had known her twenty-four hours, to fall hopelessly in love with her myself, you will admit that I had something to reproach myself with.”

      She was still silent, rather pale and very thoughtful, and she seemed to breathe more quickly than usual.

      “Of course,” I continued, “you may say that it was my own lookout, that I had only to keep my own counsel, and no one would be any the worse. But there’s the mischief of it. How can a man who is thinking of a woman morning, noon and night; whose heart leaps at the sound of her coming, whose existence is a blank when she is away from him—a blank which he tries to fill by recalling, again and again, all that she has said and the tones of her voice, and the look that was in her eyes when she spoke—how can he help letting her see, sooner or later, that he cares for her? And if he does, when he has no right to, there is an end of duty and chivalry and even common СКАЧАТЬ