Part 38 (1/2)

'I can see that,' said Leonard. 'I do hope that if--if I can take this patiently, it may show I am sorry for the real thing--and I may be forgiven. Oh! I am glad prisoners are not cut off from church.'

Dr. May pressed his hand in much emotion: and there was a silence before another question--whether there were nothing that could be of service.

'One chance there is, that Sam might relent enough to put that receipt where it could be found without implicating him. He must know what it would do for me.'

'You are convinced that he has it?'

'There must be papers in the book valuable to him; perhaps some that he had rather were not seen. Most likely he secured it in the morning.

You remember he was there before the police.'

'Ay! ay! ay! the scoundrel! But, Leonard, what possessed you not to speak out at the inquest, when we might have searched every soul on the premises?'

'I did not see it then. I was stunned by the horror of the thing--the room where I had been so lately, and that blood on my own rifle too.

It was all I could do at one time not to faint, and I had no notion they would not take my explanation; then, when I found it rejected, and everything closing in on me, I was in a complete maze. It was not till yesterday, when I was alone again, after having gone over my defence with Mr. Bramshaw, and shown what I could prove, that I saw exactly how it must have been, as clear as a somnambulist. I sometimes could fancy I had seen Sam listening at the window, and have to struggle not to think I knew him under the stable wall.'

'And you are not such a--such a--so absurd as to sacrifice yourself to any scruple, and let the earth be c.u.mbered with a rascal who, if he be withholding the receipt, is committing a second murder! It is not generosity, it is suicide.'

'It is not generosity,' said the boy, 'for if there were any hope, that would not stop me; but no one heard nor saw but myself, and I neither recognized him--no, I did not--nor heard anything definite from my uncle. Even if I had, no one--no one but you, believes a word I speak; nay, even my own case shows what probabilities are worth, and that I may be doing him the same wrong that I am suffering. I should only bring on myself the shame and disgrace of accusing another.'

The steady low voice and unboyish language showed him to be speaking from reflection, not impulse. The only tremulous moment was when he spoke of the one friend who trusted him, and whom his words were filling with a tumult of hope and alarm, admiration, indignation, and perplexity.

'Well, well,' the Doctor said, almost stammering, 'I am glad you have been open with me. It may be a clue. Can there be any excuse for overhauling his papers? Or can't we pick a hole in that alibi of his?

Now I recollect, he had it very pat, and unnecessarily prominent. I'll find some way of going to work without compromising you. Yes, you may trust me! I'll watch, but say not a word without your leave.'

'Thank you,' said Leonard. 'I am glad it is you--you who would never think a vague hope of saving me better than disgrace and dishonour.'

'We will save you,' said the Doctor, becoming eager to escape to that favourite counsellor, the lining of his brougham, which had inspired him with the right theory of many a perplexing symptom, and he trusted would show him how to defend without betraying Leonard. 'I must go and see about it. Is there anything I can do for you--books, or anything?'

No, thank you--except--I suppose there would be no objection to my having a few finer steel pens. 'And to explain his wants, he took up his Prayer-Book, which his sister had decorated with several small devotional prints. Copying these minutely line by line in pen and ink, was the solace of his prison hours; and though the work was hardly after drawing-masters' rules, the hand was not untaught, and there was talent and soul enough in the work to strike the Doctor.

'It suits me best,' said Leonard. 'I should go distracted with nothing to do; and I can't read much--at least, not common books. And my sisters may like to have them. Will you let me do one for you?'

The speaking expression of those hazel eyes almost overcame the Doctor, and his answer was by bending head and grasping hand. Leonard turned to the Collects, and mutely opened at the print of the Son of Consolation, which he had already outlined, looked up at his friend, and turned away, only saying, 'Two or three of the sort with elastic nibs; they have them at the post-office.'

'Yes, I'll take care,' said Dr. May, afraid to trust his self-command any longer. 'Good-bye, Leonard. Tom says I adopt every one who gets through a bad enough fever, so what will you be to me after this second attack?'

The result of the Doctor's consultation with his brougham was his stopping it at Mr. Bramshaw's door, to ascertain whether the search for the receipt had extended to young Axworthy's papers; but he found that they had been thoroughly examined, every facility having been given by their owner, who was his uncle's executor, and residuary legatee, by a will dated five years back, leaving a thousand pounds to the late Mrs.

Ward, and a few other legacies, but the ma.s.s of the property to the nephew.

Sam's 'facilities' not satisfying the Doctor, it was further explained that every endeavour was being made to discover what other doc.u.ments were likely to have been kept in the missing memorandum-book, so as to lead to the detection of any person who might present any such at a bank; and it was made evident that everything was being done, short of the impracticability of searching an unaccused man, but he could not but perceive that Mr. Bramshaw's 'ifs' indicated great doubt of the existence of receipt and of pocket-book. Throwing out a hint that the time of Sam's return should be investigated, he learnt that this had been Edward Anderson's first measure, and that it was clear, from the independent testimony of the ostler at Whitford, the friend who had driven Sam, and the landlord of the Three Goblets, that there was not more than time for the return exactly as described at the inquest; and though the horse was swift and powerful, and might probably have been driven at drunken speed, this was too entirely conjectural for anything to be founded on it. Nor had the cheque by Bilson on the Whitford Bank come in.

'Something must a.s.suredly happen to exonerate the guiltless, it would be profane to doubt,' said Dr. May continually to himself and to the Wards; but Leonard's secret was a painful burthen that he could scarcely have borne without sharing it with that daughter who was his other self, and well proved to be a safe repository.

'That's my Leonard,' said Ethel. 'I know him much better now than any time since the elf-bolt affair! They have not managed to ruin him among them.'

'What do you call this?' said Dr. May, understanding her, indeed, but willing to hear her thought expressed.

'Thankworthy,' she answered, with a twitching of the corners of her mouth.