"NO! I won"t have it said again.--Now, listen, Mr. Dering. These suspicions must cease. There must be an end. Athelstan returned six weeks ago--or thereabouts. That can be proved. Before that time, he was working in San Francisco on the journal. That can be proved. While these forgeries, with which he is now so freely charged, were carried on here, he was abroad. I don"t ask you to believe or to disbelieve or to bring up your experience--oh! such experience--one would think you had been a police magistrate all your life."
"No, Elsie." Mr. Dering smiled grimly. "There was no need to sit upon the bench; the police magistrate does not hear so much as the family solicitor. My dear, prove your brother"s innocence by finding out who did the thing. That is, after all, the only thing. It matters nothing what I believe--he is not proved innocent--all the world may be suspected of it--until the criminal is found. Remove the suspicions which have gathered about your lover by finding the criminal. There is no other way."
"Very well, then. I will find the criminal, since no one else can."
Mr. Dering went on without heeding her words.
"They want to get out a warrant against Edmund Gray. I think, for my own part, that the man Edmund Gray has nothing to do with the business. He is said to be an elderly man and a respectable man--a gentleman--who has held his Chambers for ten years."
"They need not worry about a warrant," Elsie replied. "Tell your brother, Mr. Dering, that it will be perfectly useless. Meantime--I doubt if it is any good asking you--but--if we want your help, will you give me all the help you can?"
"a.s.suredly. All the help I can. Why not? I am the princ.i.p.al person concerned."
"You are, indeed," said Elsie gravely--"the princ.i.p.al person concerned.
Very well, Mr. Dering--now I will tell you more. I know the--the criminal. I can put my hand upon him at any moment. It is one man who has done the whole, beginning with the cheque for which Athelstan was suspected--one man alone."
"Why, child, what can you know about it? What can you do?"
"You were never in love, Mr. Dering--else you would understand that a girl will do a great deal--oh! a great deal more than you would think--for her lover. It is not much to think for him and to watch for him--and for her brother--the brother who has stripped himself of everything to give his sister!" She was fain to pause, for the tears which rose again and choked her voice.
"But, Elsie--what does this mean? How can you know what no one else has been able to find out?"
"That is my affair, Mr. Dering. Perhaps I dreamed it."
"Do you mean that you will get back all the papers--all the transfers--the dividends that have been diverted--everything?"
"Everything is safe. Everything shall be restored.--My dear guardian, it is a long and a sad story. I cannot tell you now. Presently, perhaps. Or to-morrow. I do not know how I shall be able to tell you. But for your property, rest easy. Everything will come back to you--everything--except that which cannot be stored in the vaults of the Bank."
The last words he heard not, or understood not.
"I shall get back everything!" The eyes of the Individualist lit up and his pale cheek glowed--old age has still some pleasures. "It is not until one loses Property that one finds out how precious it has become.
Elsie, you remember what I told you, a day or two ago. Ah! I don"t forget quite everything--a man is not the shivering naked soul only, but the complete figure, equipped and clothed, armed and decorated, bearing with him his skill, his wit, his ingenuity, his learning, his past, and his present, his memories and his rejoicings, his sorrows and his trials, his successes and his failures, and his Property--yes--his Property. Take away from him any of these things, and he is mutilated: he is not the perfect soul. Why, you tell me that my Property is coming back-- I awake again. I feel stronger already; the shadows are flying before me: even the terror of that strange forgetfulness recedes: and the haunting of Edmund Gray. I can bear all, if I get my Property back again. As for this forger--this miscreant--this criminal--you will hale him before the judge------"
"Yes--yes. We will see about the miscreant afterwards. The first thing is to find the man and recover your Property, and to dispel the suspicions resting on innocent persons. If I do the former, you must aid me in the latter."
"a.s.suredly. I shall not shrink from that duty."
"Very well.--Now tell me about yourself. Sometimes it does good to talk about our own troubles. Tell me more about these forgetful fits. Do they trouble you still?" Her eyes and her voice were soft and winning. One must be of granite to resist such a voice and such eyes.
"My dear"--Mr. Dering softened. "You are good to interest yourself in an old man"s ailments. It is Anno Domini that is the matter with me. The forgetful fits are only symptoms--and the disease is incurable. Ask the oak why the leaves are yellow.--It is the hand of winter. That is my complaint. First the hand of winter, then the hand of Death. Meantime, the voice of the gra.s.shopper sings loud and shrill." In presence of the simple things of age and death, even a hard old lawyer grows poetic.
"Tell me the symptoms, then. Do you still forget things?"
"Constantly. More and more. I forget everything."
"Where were you yesterday evening, for instance?"
"I don"t know. I cannot remember. I have left off even trying to remember. At one time I racked my brain for hours, to find out, and failed. Now I remember nothing. I never know when this forgetfulness may fall upon me. At any hour.--For instance--you ask me about yesterday evening. I ordered dinner at home. My housekeeper this morning reminded me that I did not get home last night till eleven. Where was I? Where did I spend the evening?"
"At the Club?"
"No-- I took a cab this morning and drove there under pretence of asking for letters. I asked if I was there last night. The hall porter stared.
But I was not there. I thought that I might have fallen asleep there. I have done so before. Checkley tells me that I went away before him.
Where was I?-- Child!"--he leaned forward and whispered, with white cheeks--"I have read of men going about with disordered brains doing what they afterwards forget. Am I one of these unfortunates? Do I go about with my wits wandering? Oh! horrible! I picture to myself an old man--such as myself--of unblemished reputation and blameless life--wandering about the streets demented--without conscience--without dignity--without self-respect--committing follies--things disgraceful--even things which bring men before the law----" He shuddered. He turned pale.
"No--no," murmured Elsie. "You could not. You could never----"
"Such things are on record. They have happened. They may happen again. I have read of such cases. There was a man once--he was like myself--a Solicitor--who would go out and do things, not knowing what he did. They found him out at last doing something so incredibly foolish that there was but one explanation. In another man and a younger man it would have been worse than foolish, it would have been criminal. Then they gave him a companion, and he discovered what he had done. The shame and the shock of it killed him. I have thought of that man of late. Good Heavens!
Think, if you can, of any worse disaster. Let me die--let me die, I say, rather than suffer such a fate--such an affliction. I see myself brought before the magistrate--me--myself--at my age, charged with this and with that. What defence? None, save that I did not remember."
"That could never be," said Elsie confidently, because she knew the facts. "If such a thing were to befall, your character would never be changed. You might talk and think differently, but you could never be otherwise than a good man. You to haunt low company? Oh! you could not even in a waking dream. People who dream, I am sure, always remain themselves, however strangely they may act. How could you--you--after such a life as yours, become a haunter of low company? One might perhaps suppose that Athelstan had been living among profligates because he is young and untried--but you?--you? Oh! no. If you had these waking dreams--perhaps you have them--you would become--you would become--I really think you would become"--she watched his face--"such--such a man as--as--Mr. Edmund Gray, who is so like yourself, and yet so different."
He started. "Edmund Gray again? Good Heavens! It is always Edmund Gray!"
"He is now a friend of mine. I have only known him for a week or two. He does not think quite as you do. But he is a good man. Since, in dreams, we do strange things, you might act and speak and think as Edmund Gray."
"I speak and think as---- But--am I dreaming? Am I forgetting again? Am I awake? Edmund Gray is the man whom we want to find."
"I have found him," said Elsie quietly.
"The forger--if he is the forger----"
"No--no. Do not make more mistakes. You shall have the truth in a day or two. Would you like to see Edmund Gray? Will you come with me to his Chambers? Whenever you call, you--you, I say--will find him at home."
"No--no. I know his doctrines--futile doctrines--mischievous doctrines.
I do not wish to meet him. What do you mean by mistakes? There are the letters--there are the forgeries. Are there two Edmund Grays?"
"No--only one. He is the man they cannot find. I will show you, if you like, what manner of man he is."
"No. I do not want to see a Socialist. I should insult him.--You are mysterious, Elsie. You know this man, this mischievous doctrinaire--this leveller--this spoliator. You tell me that he is a good man--you want me to see him. What, I ask, do these things mean?"
"They mean many things, my dear guardian. Chiefly they mean that you shall get back your Property, and that suspicion shall be removed from innocent persons--and all this, I hope, before next Wednesday, when I am to be married. We must all be happy on my wedding day."
"Will--will Mr. Edmund Gray be there as well?"
"He has promised.--And now, my dear guardian, if you will come round to Gray"s Inn with me, I will show you the Chambers of Mr. Edmund Gray."
"No--no. Thank you, Elsie-- I do not wish to make the personal acquaintance of a Socialist."
"He has Chambers on the second floor. The princ.i.p.al room is large and well furnished. It is a wainscoted room with two windows looking on the Square. It is not a very pretty Square, because they have not made a garden or laid down gra.s.s in the middle--and the houses are rather dingy. He sits there in the evening. He writes and meditates. Sometimes he teaches me, but that is a new thing. In the morning he is sometimes there between nine o"clock and twelve. He has an old laundress, who pretends to keep his rooms clean."
She murmured these words softly, thinking to turn his memory back and make him understand what had happened.
"They are pleasant rooms, are they not?" He made no reply--his eyes betrayed trouble. She thought it was the trouble of struggling memory.--"He sits here alone and works. He thinks he is working for the advancement of the world. There is no one so good, I think, as Edmund Gray."
He suddenly pushed back the chair and sprang to his feet.
"My Scholar! You speak of me?"