Chapter XXVI. A Chance Meeting - Page 2

him in the name of Billington. Uncertain as he felt about the minor details, Guy was sure this interpretation must be right in the main. For Elma's sake--for the honour of the family--Cyril wished him for the present to disappear. Cyril's wish was sacred. He would go to South Africa.

The great point was now to avoid meeting Gildersleeve before the ship sailed. So he would pay his bill quietly, put his things in his portmanteau, stop in his room till dusk, and then drive off in a close cab to the landing-stage.

But, first of all, he must send the three thousand direct to Cyril.

He sat down in a fit of profound penitence, and penned a heart-broken letter of confession to his brother.

It was vague, of course; such letters are always vague; no man, even in confessing, likes to allude in plain terms to the exact nature of the crime he has committed; and besides, Guy took it for granted that Cyril knew all about the main features of the case already. He didn't ask his brother to forgive him, he said; he didn't try to explain, for explanation would be impossible. How he came to do it, he had no idea himself. A sudden suggestion--a strange unaccountable impulse--a minute or two of indecision--and almost before he knew it, under the spell of that strange eye, the thing was done, irretrievably done for ever. The best he could offer now was to express his profound and undying regret at the wrong he had committed, and by which he had never profited himself a single farthing. Nevitt had deceived him with incredible meanness; he could never have believed any man would act as Nevitt had acted. Nevitt had stolen three thousand pounds of the sum, and applied them to paying off his own debt to the Rio Negro creditors: The remaining three thousand, sent herewith, Guy had recovered, almost by a miracle, from that false creature's grasp, and he returned them now, in proof of the fact, in Montague Nevitt's own pocket-book, which Cyril would no doubt immediately recognise. For himself, he meant to leave England at once, at least for the present. Where he was going he wouldn't as yet let Cyril know. He hoped in a new country to recover his honour and rehabilitate his name. Meanwhile, it was mainly for Cyril's sake that he fled--and for one other person's too--to avoid a scandal. He hoped Cyril would be happy with the woman of his choice; for it was to insure their joint happiness that he was accepting the offer of escape so unexpectedly tendered him.

He sealed up the letter--that incriminating letter, that might mean so much more than he ever put into it--and took it out to the post, with the three thousand pounds and Montague Nevitt's pocket-book in a separate packet. Proud Kelmscott as he was by birth and nature, he slunk through the streets like a guilty man, fancying all eyes were fixed suspiciously upon him. Then he returned to the hotel in a burning heat, went into the smoking room on purpose like an honest