Chapter 8 - Page 2

meet, and I
completed it by saying at last: "My dear fellow, for that matter,
what would become of YOU?"

Once more he turned on me his good green eyes. "Oh I shouldn't
mind!"

The tone of his words somehow made his ugly face beautiful, and I
discovered at this moment how much I really liked him. None the
less, at the same time, perversely and rudely, I felt the droll
side of our discussion of such alternatives. It made me laugh out
and say to him while I laughed: "You'd take her even with those
things of Mrs. Meldrum's?"

He remained mournfully grave; I could see that he was surprised at
my rude mirth. But he summoned back a vision of the lady at
Folkestone and conscientiously replied: "Even with those things of
Mrs. Meldrum's." I begged him not to resent my laughter, which but
exposed the fact that we had built a monstrous castle in the air.
Didn't he see on what flimsy ground the structure rested? The
evidence was preposterously small. He believed the worst, but we
were really uninformed.

"I shall find out the truth," he promptly replied.

"How can you? If you question her you'll simply drive her to
perjure herself. Wherein after all does it concern you to know the
truth? It's the girl's own affair."

"Then why did you tell me your story?"

I was a trifle embarrassed. "To warn you off," I smiled. He took
no more notice of these words than presently to remark that Lord
Iffield had no serious intentions. "Very possibly," I said. "But
you mustn't speak as if Lord Iffield and you were her only
alternatives."

Dawling thought a moment. "Couldn't something be got out of the
people she has consulted? She must have been to people. How else
can she have been condemned?"

"Condemned to what? Condemned to perpetual nippers? Of course she
has consulted some of the big specialists, but she has done it, you
may be sure, in the most clandestine manner; and even if it were
supposable that they would tell you anything--which I altogether
doubt--you would have great difficulty in finding out which men
they are. Therefore leave it alone; never show her what you
suspect."

I even before he quitted me asked him to promise me this. "All
right, I promise"--but he was gloomy enough. He was a lover facing
the fact that there was no limit to the deceit his loved one was
ready to practise: it made so remarkably little difference. I
could see by what a stretch his passionate pity would from this
moment overlook the girl's fatuity and folly. She was always
accessible to him--that I knew; for if she had told him he was an
idiot to dream she could dream of him, she would have rebuked the
imputation of having failed to make it clear that she would always