‘So be it,’ said he. ’There
is the cheque. Mr. Gray will see that I put it
into both their hands.’ This he did, each
of them stretching out a hand to take it. ’And
now you can go where you please and act as you please.
You have combined to rob me of all that I value most
by the basest of lies; but not on that account have
I abstained from doing what I believe to be an act
of justice.’ Then he left the room, and
paying for the use of it to the woman at the bar,
walked off with his friend Gray, leaving Crinkett,
Bollum, and the woman still within the house.
Waiting For The Trial
As he returned to Cambridge Caldigate was not altogether
contented with himself. He tried to persuade
himself, in reference to the money which he had refunded,
that in what he had done he had not at all been actuated
by the charge made against him. Had there been
no such accusation he would have felt himself bound
to share the loss with these people as soon as he
had learned the real circumstances. The money
had been a burden to him. For the satisfaction
of his own honour, of his own feelings, it had become
necessary that the money should be refunded.
And the need of doing so was not lessened by the fact
that a base conspiracy had been made by a gang of
villains who had thought that the money might thus
be most readily extracted from him. That was
his argument with himself, and his defence for what
he had done. But nevertheless he was aware that
he had been driven to do it now,—to pay
the money at this special moment,—by an
undercurrent of hope that these enemies would think
it best for themselves to go as soon as they had his
money in their hands. He wished to be honest,
he wished to be honourable, he wished that all that
he did could be what the world calls ‘above
board’; but still it was so essential for him
and for his wife that they should go! He had
been very steady in assuring these wretched ones that
they might go or stay, as they pleased. He had
been careful that there should be a credible witness
of his assurance. He might succeed in making
others believe that he had not attempted to purchase
their absence; but he could not make himself believe
it.
Even though a jury should not convict him, there was
so much in his Australian life which would not bear
the searching light of cross-examination! The
same may probably be said of most of us. In such
trials as this that he was anticipating, there is often
a special cruelty in the exposure of matters which
are for the most part happily kept in the background.
A man on some occasion inadvertently takes a little
more wine than is good for him. It is an accident
most uncommon with him, and nobody thinks much about
it. But chance brings the case to the notice
of the police courts, and the poor victim is published
to the world as a drunkard in the columns of all the
newspapers. Some young girl fancies herself in
love, and the man is unworthy. The feeling passes
away, and none but herself, and perhaps her mother,
are the wiser. But if by some chance, some treachery,
a letter should get printed and read, the poor girl’s
punishment is so severe that she is driven to wish
herself in the grave.
