“Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde’s affairs,” I said.
“I have never known anything about them in former times, and I know
nothing of them now—except that her fortune is lost. You are right in
assuming that I have personal motives for stirring in this matter. I
wish those motives to be always as disinterested as they are at the
present moment——”
He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little heated, I suppose, by
feeling that he had doubted me, and I went on bluntly, without waiting
to hear him.
“There shall be no money motive,” I said, “no idea of personal
advantage in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has been
cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born—a lie
which records her death has been written on her mother’s tomb—and
there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are responsible for it.
That house shall open again to receive her in the presence of every
soul who followed the false funeral to the grave—that lie shall be
publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the
family, and those two men shall answer for their crime to ME, though
the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have
given my life to that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me,
I will accomplish it.”
He drew back towards his table, and said nothing. His face showed
plainly that he thought my delusion had got the better of my reason,
and that he considered it totally useless to give me any more advice.
“We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle,” I said, “and we must wait till
the events of the future decide between us. In the meantime, I am much
obliged to you for the attention you have given to my statement. You
have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word,
beyond our means. We cannot produce the law proof, and we are not rich
enough to pay the law expenses. It is something gained to know that.”
I bowed and walked to the door. He called me back and gave me the
letter which I had seen him place on the table by itself at the
beginning of our interview.
“This came by post a few days ago,” he said. “Perhaps you will not
mind delivering it? Pray tell Miss Halcombe, at the same time, that I
sincerely regret being, thus far, unable to help her, except by advice,
which will not be more welcome, I am afraid, to her than to you.”
I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It was addressed to
“Miss Halcombe. Care of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane.” The
handwriting was quite unknown to me.
On leaving the room I asked one last question.
“Do you happen to know,” I said, “if Sir Percival Glyde is still in
Paris?”
“He has returned to London,” replied Mr. Kyrle. “At least I heard so
from his solicitor, whom I met yesterday.”
After that answer I went out.
On leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to
abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. I
walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the north of
Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a place where a long
stretch of pavement was left behind me.
There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped also,
and who were standing talking together. After a moment’s reflection I
turned back so as to pass them. One moved as I came near, and turned
the corner leading from the square into the street. The other remained
stationary. I looked at him as I passed and instantly recognised one of
the men who had watched me before I left England.
If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably have
begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him down. But
I was bound to consider consequences. If I once placed myself publicly
in the wrong, I put the weapons at once into Sir Percival’s hands.
There was no choice but to oppose cunning by cunning. I turned into
the street down which the second man had disappeared, and passed him,
waiting in a doorway. He was a stranger to me, and I was glad to make
sure of his personal appearance in case of future annoyance. Having
done this, I again walked northward till I reached the New Road. There
I turned aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time),
and waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some distance from
a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to pass
me. One passed in a few minutes. I jumped in and told the man to drive
rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast cab for the spies
behind me. I saw them dart across to the other side of the road, to
follow me by running, until a cab or a cab-stand came in their way. But
I had the start of them, and when I stopped the driver and got out,
they were nowhere in sight. I crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the
open ground, that I was free. When I at last turned my steps homewards,
it was not till many hours later—not till after dark.
I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room. She
had persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to show me
her drawing the moment I came in. The poor little dim faint sketch—so
trifling in itself, so touching in its associations—was propped up
carefully on the table with two books, and was placed where the faint
light of the one candle we allowed ourselves might fall on it to the
best advantage. I sat down to look at the drawing, and to tell Marian,
in whispers, what had happened. The partition which divided us from the
next room was so thin that we could almost hear Laura’s breathing, and
we might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud.
Marian preserved her composure while I described my interview with Mr.
Kyrle. But her face became troubled when I spoke next of the men who
had followed me from the lawyer’s office, and when I told her of the
discovery of Sir Percival’s return.
“Bad news, Walter,” she said, “the worst news you could bring. Have you
nothing more to tell me?”
“I have something to give you,” I replied, handing her the note which
Mr. Kyrle had confided to my care.
She looked at the address and recognised the handwriting instantly.
“You know your correspondent?” I said.
“Too well,” she answered. “My correspondent is Count Fosco.”
With that reply she opened the note. Her face flushed deeply while she
read it—her eyes brightened with anger as she handed it to me to read
in my turn.