EDWARD CLARE GOES ON A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.
To sit beside a man’s hearth, drink his wine, shoot his pheasants and
ride his horses, would in a savage community be incompatible with the
endurance of a deadly hatred against that man. The thoroughbred savage
hates only his enemy and the intruding stranger. Mr. Stanley tells us
that if he could once get close enough to a tribe to hold a parley with
them, he and his followers were safe. The difficulty was that they had
to encounter a shower of arrows before they could get within range for
conversation. When the noble African found that the explorer meant
kindly, he no longer thirsted for the white man’s blood. His savagery
for the most part meant self-defence.
The ways of civilization are not as the ways of the desert. There are
men and women whose animosity is not to be appeased by kindness--who
will take all they can get from a man, and go on detesting him
cordially to the end. Edward Clare, the sleek, white-handed poet,
possessed this constancy in hatred. John Treverton had done him no
direct injury; for the poet’s love for Laura had never been strong
enough to outweigh prudence. He had wanted Laura and Hazlehurst Manor:
not Laura with her modest income of two hundred and fifty pounds a
year. He was angry with fate and Jasper Treverton for the will which
had made Laura’s wealth dependent on her marriage with the heir; he
hated John Treverton for the good fortune which had fallen into his
lap. And this hatred wore such a noble aspect in the man’s own mind.
It was no base envy of another’s prosperity; it was not even jealous
anger against a rival, Edward told himself. No, it was a chivalrous
ardour in the defence of the woman he had loved; it was a generous
desire to serve her which urged him to pluck the mask from this smooth
hypocrite’s face. If this man was indeed, as Edward believed, the
husband of Zaïre Chicot, the dancer, then his marriage with Laura was
no marriage, and the conditions of the will had not been fulfilled.
The estate, the possession of which could only be secured by a legal
marriage within the year following Jasper Treverton’s death, had been
obtained by an audacious fraud.
Was this great wrong to pass undetected and unpunished? Was Laura,
whose love had been so easily won by this scoundrel, to go on blindly
trusting him, until some day an accident should reveal his infamy and
her dishonour? No, Edward believed that it was his duty to let in the
light upon this iniquitous secret; and he determined to leave no stone
unturned in the fulfilment of his mission.
This fellow Desrolles was evidently a creature of John Treverton’s.
His denial of the identity between the two men went for nothing in
Edward’s mind. There must be plenty of people in the neighbourhood of
Cibber Street able to identify the missing Chicot, if they could only
be brought face to face with him.
‘I wonder you and Mrs. Treverton have not been photographed since
your marriage,’ Edward said one afternoon in the Christmas week, when
John Treverton was well enough to join the kettledrum party in the
book-room, and they four, Mr. and Mrs. Treverton, Celia, and Edward,
were sitting round a glorious fire.
He had been looking over a volume of photographs by the light of the
blazing wood, so the question seemed natural enough.
‘Ah, by-the-by, Jack, I really must have you photographed,’ said
Laura gaily. ‘Lady Barker was very particular in her request for our
photographs the other day. She has a very fine collection, she tells
me.’
‘About a hundred and fifty of her bosom friends, I suppose,’ retorted
John Treverton, ‘all simpering in the highest style of art, and trying
to look unconscious of the photographer’s iron collar gripping them by
the scruff of the neck. No, Laura, I am not going to let the sun make
a correct map of my wrinkles in order that I may join the simperers
in Lady Barker’s photograph album, that fashionable refuge for the
destitute in brains, after a dull dinner.’
‘Do you mean to say that you have never been photographed?’ asked
Edward.
‘No, I do not. I had my photograph taken by Nadar a good many years
ago, when I was young and frivolous.’
‘Oh, Jack, how I should like to have a picture of what you were years
ago!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘What has become of all the photographs?’
‘Heaven knows,’ answered John carelessly; ‘given to Tom, Dick, and
Harry--scattered to the four winds. I have not kept one of them.’
‘Nadar,’ repeated Edward musingly; ‘you are talking of the man in
Paris, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know Paris well?’
‘Every Englishman who has spent a fortnight there would say as much
as that,’ answered John Treverton carelessly. ‘I know my way from the
Louvre to the Palais Royal, and I know two or three famous restaurants,
where a man may get an excellent dinner if he likes to pay for it with
its weight in gold.’
Nothing more was said upon the subject of photographs. Edward Clare
left Hazlehurst next day for London. He was not going to be long away,
he told his father and mother, but he wanted to see a manager who had
made overtures to him for a legitimate historical drama, in blank verse.
‘He was struck by a dramatic fragment I wrote for one of the
magazines,’ said Edward, ‘and he has taken it into his head that I
could write as good a play as the “Hunchback” or the “Lady of Lyons.”’
‘Oh, do go and see him, Ted,’ cried Celia, with enthusiasm. ‘It would
be awfully jolly if you were to write a play. We should all have to go
up to town to see the first performance.’
‘Should we?’ interrupted the Vicar, without looking up from his _John
Bull_, ‘and pray who would find the money for our railway fare, and
our hotel bill?’
‘Why, you, of course,’ cried Celia. ‘That would be a mere bagatelle. If
Edward were to burst upon the world as a successful dramatic author he
would be on the high road to fortune, and we could all afford a little
extravagance. But who is your manager, Ted, and who are the actors who
are to act in your play?’ inquired Celia, anxious for details.
‘I shall say nothing about that till my play is written and accepted,’
answered Edward. ‘The whole affair is in the clouds at present.’
Celia gave a short impatient sigh. So many of her brother’s literary
schemes had begun and ended in the clouds.
‘I suppose I am to take care of your den while you are away,’ she said,
presently, ‘and dust your books and papers?’
‘I shall be glad if you will preserve them from the profane hand of
my mother’s last domestic treasure in the shape of a new housemaid,’
answered Edward.
Before any one could ask him any more questions the ’bus from the
‘George’ was at the Vicarage gate, waiting to take him to the station
at Beechampton, in company with two obese farmers, and a rosy-cheeked
girl going out to service, and carrying a nosegay of winter flowers, a
bandbox, and an umbrella.
How sweet and fresh the air was in the clear December morning, almost
the last of the year! How picturesque the winding lane, the wide sweep
of cultivated valley and distant belt of hill and moor.
Edward Clare’s eyes roamed across the familiar scene, and saw nothing
of its tranquil beauty. His mind was absorbed in the business that lay
before him. His heart was full of rancour. He was tormented by that
worst of all foes to a man’s peace--an envious mind. The image of John
Treverton’s good fortune haunted him like a wicked conscience. He could
not go his own way, and forget that his neighbour was luckier than
himself. Had Fate smiled upon his poetic efforts, had some sudden and
startling success whisked him up into the seventh heaven of literary
fame, at the same time filling his pockets, he might possibly have
forgiven John Treverton; but with the sense of failure goading him, his
angry feelings were perpetually intensifying.
He was in the London streets just as dusk was falling, after a cold,
uncomfortable journey. He took his travelling bag in his hand, and set
out on foot to find a lodging, for his funds were scanty, as he had not
ventured to ask his father for money since his return to the Vicarage.
It was an understood thing that he was to have the run of his teeth at
Hazlehurst, and that his muse was to supply all other wants.
He did not go to the street where he had lodged before--a narrow,
dismal street, between Holborn and the British Museum. He went to the
more crowded quarter, bounded on one side by Leicester Square, on the
other by St. Martin’s Lane, and betook himself straight to Cibber
Street. He had made up his mind to get a room in that uninviting spot,
if any decent shelter were available there.
Before seeking for this accommodation elsewhere, he went to look at the
house to which La Chicot’s murder had given such an awful notoriety.
He found it more reputable of aspect than when he had last seen it,
a few days after the murder. A new wire blind shaded the lower part
of the parlour window; new red curtains drooped gracefully over the
upper panes. The window itself looked cleaner and brighter than it had
ever looked during the stately Mrs. Rawber’s occupation of the ground
floor. A new brass plate on the door bore the inscription, ‘Mr. Gerard,
surgeon.’
Edward Clare contemplated this shining brass plate with the blank
gaze of disappointment. He concluded, not unnaturally, that the whole
house had passed into the possession of Mr. Gerard, surgeon, and that
Mrs. Evitt had gone forth into the wilderness of London, where she
would be more difficult to find than poor Hagar and her son in the
sandy wastes of the great desert. While he stood ruminating upon this
apparent change in the aspect of affairs, his eye wandered to a window
looking upon the area beneath the parlour, from which there came a
comfortable glow of light. The occupant of the basement had not drawn
down the illuminated blind which generally shaded her domesticity from
the vulgar eye; and, seated by her kitchen fire, indulging in the
inexpensive luxury of slumber, Edward beheld that very Mrs. Evitt whom
he had supposed lost in the metropolitan labyrinth. He had no doubt as
to those corkscrew curls, that vinegar visage. This was the woman with
whom he had talked for half-an-hour one bleak March morning, when he
had inspected the scene of the murder, under the pretence of looking
for lodgings.
He went up the steps to the door. There were two bells, one labelled
‘SURGERY,’ the other ‘HOUSE.’ Edward rang the latter, which was
answered after an interval by the landlady, looking cross and sleepy.
At the sight of Mr. Clare, with his travelling bag in his hand, she
scented a lodger, and brightened.
‘Have you a decent bedroom to let, on your second floor?’ he asked,
for although he was no believer in the influences of the spirit world,
he would have preferred spending the December night upon the bleakest
and windiest of the bridges to lying down to rest in the room where La
Chicot had been slain.
‘I’ve got my first floor empty,’ said Mrs. Evitt, ‘beautiful rooms, all
new papered and painted.’
‘I’d rather go higher up,’ answered Edward. ‘You had a lodger named
Desrolles. What has become of him?’
‘Gone to travel in foreign parts,’ replied the landlady. ‘I
believe he had money left him. He was quite a gentleman when he
started--everything new, from his portmanchew to his railway rug.’
‘Can I have his rooms for a few nights? I am only in town as a bird of
passage, but I don’t want to go to an hotel.’
‘Their charges are so ’igh, and there’s no privacy in ’em,’ said Mrs.
Evitt, with a sympathetic air, as if she divined his inmost feelings.
‘You can have Mr. Desrolles’ rooms, sir, and we shan’t quarrel about
the rent.’
‘The rooms are clean, I suppose?’ Edward hazarded.
‘Clean!’ exclaimed Mrs. Evitt, lifting up her eyebrows with the
indignation of outraged innocence. ‘Nobody that has ever lodged with me
would ask that question. Clean! No house of mine ever ’arboured dirt.’
‘I should like to see the bedroom,’ said Edward. ‘The sitting-room
matters very little. I shall be out all the day.’
‘If you’ll wait while I fetch a candle, I’ll show you both rooms,’
replied the landlady. ‘I suppose you want to come in at once?’
‘Yes. I have just come from the country, and have no more luggage than
this bag. I can pay you for the rooms in advance, if you like.’
‘Money comes uncommonly handy now that provisions have rose to such
a heighth,’ returned Mrs. Evitt, with an insinuating air. ‘Not that
I could ever feel an instant’s doubt respecting a young gent of your
appearance.’
‘Money down is the best reference,’ said Edward. ‘I’m a stranger in
London. Here’s a sovereign. I suppose that’ll square us if I only keep
the rooms a week?’
‘There’ll be a trifle for boot-cleaning,’ insinuated Mrs. Evitt.
‘Oh, very well.’
‘And half-a-crown for kitching fire.’
‘Oh, come now, I won’t stand kitchen fire. You don’t suppose I’m going
to dine here. If you bring me up a cup of tea of a morning it is all I
shall want, and the fire that boils your kettle will boil mine.’
‘A trifle for attendance, then.’
‘I’ll promise nothing. If you make me comfortable, I shall not forget
you at parting.’
‘Very well, sir,’ sighed the landlady. ‘I suppose it will come to the
same in the end, but I always think it best for all parties to put
things clear.’
She retired into the darkness at the end of the narrow passage, the
dark brown wainscot of which was dimly lighted by an old-fashioned
oil lamp, and returned in a minute or two with a tallow candle in a
capacious tin candlestick. With this light she preceded Mr. Clare up
the staircase, whose shallow, uneven steps and heavy balustrade gave
evidence of its age.
On the first-floor landing Mrs. Evitt paused to recover her breath, and
Edward felt an icy thrill of horror as he found himself opposite the
bedroom door.
‘Is that the room where that poor woman was murdered?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Mrs. Evitt, with a deprecating sigh, ‘it is the
room, and I won’t deceive you. But it has been done up so nice that
nobody as ever knew it before would be able to recognise it. My
landlord acted very liberal; “anything that paint and paper can do to
set you right with your lodgers, Mrs. Evitt, shall be done,” says he.
“You’ve been a good tenant,” says he, “always punctual to the minute
with your rent,” he says, “and I should take it to heart if you was to
suffer.” Come in and look at the room, sir, and you’ll see that there
isn’t a more cheerful bedroom in this part of London.’
Mrs. Evitt flung open the door with a flourish of pride, and led the
way into the room with uplifted candlestick.
‘That’s a brand new bedstead,’ she said, ‘which cost me two pound ten
without the curtains. And there ain’t a inch of carpet or a bit of
bedding that was in the room when--when--what you mentioned took place.’
Mrs. Evitt had pinned her faith upon vivid colour as a charm to
exorcise poor Zaïre’s ghost. A sixpenny chintz of all the colours in
the rainbow draped window and bed. A painted drugget of corresponding
violence hid the worm-eaten old boards, upon which soap, sand, and soda
had been vainly expended in the endeavour to remove the dark traces of
that awful stream which had travelled from the bed to the threshold.
The dressing-table was draped with white muslin and rose-coloured
calico. The chimney-piece was resplendent with a pair of Bohemian glass
vases, and a gilded clock. Coloured lithographs in the vilest German
art brightened the walls.
‘Don’t it look cheerful?’ asked Mrs. Evitt.
‘Is that the little room where the husband used to work?’ inquired
Edward, pointing to the door.
‘Yea, but that doesn’t go with the drawing-room floor. I’ve let it to
Mr. Gerard for a room to put his books in. He’s such a man for books.
They overrun the place.’
‘Who is Mr. Gerard? Oh, by the way, that is the surgeon downstairs. How
long has he been lodging with you?’
‘It was about a month after poor Madame Chicot’s death when he come.
“I’m going to set up in business for myself, Mrs. Evitt,” he says.
“I ain’t rich enough to buy a practice,” says he, “so I must try
and make one for myself, somehow,” he says. “Now yours is a crowded
neighbourhood, and I think I might do pretty well here, if you let me
your ground floor cheap. It would be for a permanency,” says he, “so
that ought to make a difference.” “I’ll do my best to meet you,” says
I, “but my rent is high, and I never was a hour behind with it yet,
and I never will be.” Well, sir, I let him have the rooms very low,
considering their value, for I was that depressed in my sperrits it
wasn’t in me to ’aggle. That ungrateful viper, Mrs. Rawber--a woman
I’d waited on hand and foot, and fried onions for her until I’ve many
a time turned faint over the frying pan--and she’s gone and turned her
back upon me in my trouble, and took a first floor over a bootmaker’s,
where the smell of the leather must be enough to poison a female of any
refinement!’
‘Has Mr. Gerard succeeded in getting a practice?’ asked Edward.
‘Well, he do have patients,’ answered the landlady, dubiously; ‘gratis
ones a many, between the hours of eight and nine every morning. He’s
very steady and quiet in his ’abits, and that moderate that he could
live where another would starve. He’s a wonderful clever young man,
too; it was him--much more than the grand doctor--that pulled Madame
Chicot through, after her accident.’
‘Indeed!’ said Edward, becoming suddenly interested; ‘then Mr. Gerard
knew the Chicots?’
‘Knew ’em! I should think he did, indeed, poor young man! He attended
Madame Chicot night and day for months, and if it hadn’t been for him I
believe she’d have died. There never was a doctor so devoted, and all
for love. He didn’t take a penny for his attendance.’
‘A most extraordinary young man,’ said Edward.
They went up to the second-floor, and Mr. Clare was introduced to the
apartments upon which Desrolles had turned his back for ever. The
furniture was of the shabbiest, but the rooms looked tolerably clean,
much cleaner than they had appeared during the occupation of Mr.
Desrolles. Edward flung down his travelling bag, and expressed himself
contented with the accommodation.
‘Don’t put me into damp sheets,’ he said, whereupon Mrs. Evitt threw
up her hands in horror, and almost wept as she protested against so
heartless an imputation.
‘There isn’t a carefuller woman than me about airing linen in all
London,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m over-particular. I’ve scorched many a good
piller-case in my carefulness; but I’m the only loser by that, and I
don’t mind.’
‘I must go and get some dinner,’ said Edward. ‘And then I think I’ll
drop in at a theatre. I suppose you can give me a latch-key?’
‘You can have the very key that Mr. Desrolles had,’ replied Mrs. Evitt
graciously, as if according a peculiar privilege.
‘I don’t care whose key it is as long as it will open the door,’
answered the unappreciative poet; and then he put the key in his
pocket, and went out to regale himself cheaply at a French restaurant,
and then to the pit of a popular theatre. He had come to London on a
particular errand, but he meant to get as much pleasure out of his
visit as he could.
From the moment that Edward Clare heard of George Gerard’s attendance
upon Madame Chicot he became desirous of making Mr. Gerard’s
acquaintance. Here was a man who could help him in the business he had
to carry through. Here was a man who must know the dancer’s husband
intimately--a man who could identify Jack Chicot in the present Squire
of Hazlehurst. This was the man of men whom it was valuable for Edward
Clare to know. Having once made up his mind upon this point, Mr. Clare
did not lose any time in making use of his opportunities. He called
upon Mr. Gerard on the morning after his arrival in town. It was only
half-past eight when he presented himself at the surgeon’s door, so
anxious was he to secure an interview before Mr. Gerard left home.
He found George Gerard sitting at his modest breakfast of bread and
butter and coffee, an open book beside him as he ate. Edward’s eyes
marked the neatness of the surgeon’s attire, marked also that his
coat had been worn to the last stage of shabbiness at all compatible
with respectability. A month’s wear more and the wearer would be out
at elbows. He observed also the thick slices of bread and butter--the
doubtful-looking coffee, with an odour suggestive of horse-beans. Here,
evidently, was a man for whom the struggle of life was hard. Such a man
would naturally be easy to deal with.
George Gerard rose to receive his guest with a pleasant smile.
‘Mrs. Evitt told me that you wanted to see me,’ he said, waving his
hand to a chair beside his somewhat pinched fire.
A scientific arrangement of firebrick had been adapted to the roomy
old grate since Mrs. Rawber’s tenancy, and it now held a minimum of
fuel.
‘Yes, Mr. Gerard, I very much want half-an-hour’s talk with you.’
‘I can give you just half-an-hour before I start for my day’s work,’
answered Gerard, with a business-like air and a glance at the neat
little clock on the chimney-piece.
The room was curiously changed since Mrs. Rawber’s occupation. It had
then appeared the model of the vulgar lodging-house parlour. It now
looked the room of a student. George Gerard had been able to spend very
little money on the decoration of his apartments, but he had lined the
walls with deal shelves, and the shelves were filled with books; such
volumes as your genuine book-hunter collects with loving toil in the
lanes and by-ways of London. He had put a substantial, old-fashioned
writing table in the window, a pair of comfortable arm-chairs by the
hearth, a skeleton clock, and a couple of bronze figures--picked up in
one of the back slums of Covent Garden for a song--on the mantelpiece.
The general effect was of a room which a gentleman might occupy without
a blush.
Edward Clare saw all this, not without a sharp pang of envy. He
recognised, in the capacity to endure such an existence, the power to
climb the rugged hill of fame.
‘This is the kind of fellow to succeed in life,’ he thought. ‘But one
can’t expect this dogged endurance in a man of poetic temperament.’
‘Do you wish to consult me professionally?’ asked Gerard.
‘No. What I have to say relates to a very serious matter, but it is
neither a professional question for you, nor a personal affair of mine.
You knew the Chicots.’
It was Gerard’s turn to be interested. He looked at the speaker with
sudden intensity, which brightened every feature in his face.
‘Yes. What of them? Did you know them? I never saw you here when she
was ill. You knew them in Paris, perhaps?’
‘No; I never saw Madame Chicot off the stage. But I am deeply
interested in the discovery of her murderer: not for my own sake, but
for the protection of some one I esteem. Have you seen John Chicot
since the murder?’
‘No. If I had----’
George Gerard stopped suddenly, and left his sentence unfinished.
‘If you had you would have given him up to the police, as his wife’s
murderer. Is that what you were going to say?’
‘Something very near it. I have strong reason to believe that he killed
her; and yet there is ground for doubt. If he were the murderer, why
should he alarm the house? He might have gone quietly away, and the
crime would not have been discovered for hours afterwards.’
‘An excess of caution, no doubt. Murderers often over-act their parts.
Yet, if you look at the thing, you will see he was obliged to give
the alarm. Had he not done so, had he gone away and left his wife
lying dead, it would have been obvious that he, and he alone, was her
assassin. By rousing the household he put on at least the semblance of
innocence, however his flight might belie it afterwards.’
‘It is a profound mystery,’ said Gerard.
‘A mystery only to those who refuse to accept the natural solution of
the enigma. Here was a man with a drunken wife. It is an acknowledged
fact, I believe, that Madame Chicot was a drunkard?’
‘Yes, poor soul. He might have let her kill herself with a brandy
bottle. He would not have had long to wait.’
‘A man so fettered may get desperate. Suppose that I could prove to you
that this Chicot had the strongest possible temptation to rid himself
of his wife by any means, fair or foul. Suppose I could tell you that
his inheritance of a large estate was contingent upon his marriage with
another woman, that he had already, in order to secure that estate,
contracted a bigamous marriage with that other woman--she innocent as
an angel, poor girl, throughout the plot. Suppose I could prove all
this, what would you say of Jack Chicot then?’
‘Most assuredly I would say that he did the deed. Only show me that
he had a motive strong enough to urge him to crime--I know of my
own experience that he was tired of his wife--and I will accept the
evidence that points to him as the murderer.’
‘Do you think that evidence strong enough to convict him?’
‘On that point I am doubtful. His flight is damning evidence against
him; and then there is the fact that at the bottom of his colour-box
there lay a dagger which corresponded in form to the gash upon that
poor creature’s throat. I found that dagger, and it is now in the
possession of the police. It bears the dark tarnished stain that blood
leaves upon steel, and I have no doubt in my own mind that it was with
that dagger La Chicot was killed. But these two points comprise the
whole evidence against the husband. They are strong enough to afford
a presumption against his innocence; but I doubt if they are strong
enough to hang him.’
‘Let it be so. I don’t want to hang him. But I do want to rescue the
woman I once fondly loved--for whom I still care more than for any
other woman on earth--from a marriage that may end in her misery and
untimely death. What must be the fate of such a man as this Chicot, if
he is, as you believe, and as I believe, guilty? Either remorse will
drive him mad, or he will go on from crime to crime, sinking lower
in the scale of humanity. Let me but strip the mask from his face,
separate him for ever from his innocent wife, and I am content. To do
this I want your aid. Jack Chicot has disappeared from the ken of all
who knew him. The man who bore that name is now a gentleman of landed
estate, respected and respectable. Will you be disinterested enough to
waste a couple of days, and travel over three hundred miles, in order
to help me to identify the late adventurer in the present lord of the
manor? Your journey shall not cost you sixpence.’
‘If I go at all, I shall go at my own expense,’ answered Gerard curtly;
‘but you must first show me an adequate reason for doing what you ask.’
‘To do that I must tell you a long story,’ answered Edward.
And then, without mentioning the names of people or of places, he told
the story of Jasper Treverton’s will, and of Laura Malcolm’s marriage.
The facts, as he stated them, went far to show John Treverton a
scheming scoundrel, capable of committing a crime of the darkest kind
to further his own interest.
‘The case against him looks black, I admit,’ said Gerard, when Clare
had finished. ‘But there is one difficult point in the story. You say
that in order to secure the fortune Chicot married the young lady in
the January before Madame Chicot’s death. Now if he had made up his
mind to get rid of his lawful wife by foul means, why did he not do it
before he contracted that marriage instead of afterwards? The crime
would have been the same, the danger of detection no greater. The
murder committed after the second marriage was an anachronism.’
‘Who can fathom his motives? He may have had no design against his
wife’s life when he married the lady I know. He may have believed it
possible to so arrange his life that no one would ever recognise Jack
Chicot in the country squire. He may have thought that he could buy his
freedom from Madame Chicot. Perhaps it was only when he found that her
love, or her jealousy, was not to be hoodwinked that he conceived the
idea of murder! No man--assuredly no man of decent antecedents--reaches
the lowest depth of iniquity all at once.’
‘Well,’ sighed Gerard, after a pause, ‘I will go with you and see this
man. I had a curious interest in that poor creature’s career. I would
have done much to save her from the consequence of her own folly, had
it been possible. Yes, I will go with you; I should like to know the
end of the story.’
It was agreed between the two young men that they were to go to
Devonshire together in the first week of the new year, Edward Clare
remaining only a week in London. Gerard was to accompany Clare as his
friend, and to stay at the Vicarage as his guest.