There wasn’t much time left, however, for Guy to make up his mind in. He must decide at once. Should he accept this mysterious warning or not? Pure fate decided it. As he hesitated he heard a boy crying in the street. It was the special-edition-fiend calling his evening paper. The words the boy said Guy didn’t altogether catch; but the last sentence of all fell on his ear distinctly. He started in horror. It was an awful sound: “Warrant issued to-day for the apprehension of Waring.”
Then the letter, whoever wrote it, was not all a lie. The forgery was out. Cyril or the bankers had learnt the whole truth. He was to be arrested to-day as a common felon. All the world knew his shame. He hid his face in his hands. Come what might, he must accept the mysterious warning now. He would take the ticket, and go off to South Africa.
In a moment a whole policy had arisen like a cloud and framed itself in his mind. He was a forger, he knew, and by this time Cyril too most probably knew it. But he had the three thousand pounds safe and sound in his pocket, and those at least he could send back to Cyril. With them he could send a cheque on his own banker for three thousand more; not that there were funds there at present to meet the demand; but if the unknown benefactor should pay in the six thousand he promised within the next few weeks, then Cyril could repay himself from that hypothetical fortune. On the other hand, Guy didn’t disguise from himself the strong probability that the unknown benefactor might now refuse to pay in the six thousand. In that case, Guy said to himself with a groan, he would take to the diamond fields, and never rest day or night in his self-imposed task till he had made enough to repay Cyril in full the missing three thousand, and to make up the other three thousand he still owed the creditors of the Rio Negro Company. After which, he would return and give himself up like a man, to stand his trial voluntarily for the crime he had committed.
It was a young man’s scheme, very fond and youthful; but with the full confidence of his age he proceeded at once to put it in practice. Indeed, now he came to think upon it, he fancied to himself he saw something like a solution of the mystery in the presence of the great Q.C. at Plymouth that morning. Cyril had found out all, and had determined to save him. The bankers had found out all, and had determined to prosecute. They had consulted Gildersleeve. Gildersleeve had come down on a holiday trip, and run up against him at Plymouth by pure accident. Indeed, Guy remembered now that the great Q.C. looked not a little surprised and excited at meeting him. Clearly Gildersleeve had communicated with the police at once; hence the issue of the warrant. At the same time the writer of the letter, whoever he might be—and Guy now believed he was sent down by Cyril, or in Cyril’s interest—the writer had found out the facts betimes, and had taken a passage for him in the name of Billington. Uncertain as he felt about the minor details, Guy was sure this interpretation must be right in the main. For Elma’s sake—for the honour of the family—Cyril wished him for the present to disappear. Cyril’s wish was sacred. He would go to South Africa.
The great point was now to avoid meeting Gildersleeve before the ship sailed. So he would pay his bill quietly, put his things in his portmanteau, stop in his room till dusk, and then drive off in a close cab to the landing-stage.
But, first of all, he must send the three thousand direct to Cyril.
He sat down in a fit of profound penitence, and penned a heart-broken letter of confession to his brother.
It was vague, of course; such letters are always vague; no man, even in confessing, likes to allude in plain terms to the exact nature of the crime he has committed; and besides, Guy took it for granted that Cyril knew all about the main features of the case already. He didn’t ask his brother to forgive him, he said; he didn’t try to explain, for explanation would be impossible. How he came to do it, he had no idea himself. A sudden suggestion—a strange unaccountable impulse—a minute or two of indecision—and almost before he knew it, under the spell of that strange eye, the thing was done, irretrievably done for ever. The best he could offer now was to express his profound and undying regret at the wrong he had committed, and by which he had never profited himself a single farthing. Nevitt had deceived him with incredible meanness; he could never have believed any man would act as Nevitt had acted. Nevitt had stolen three thousand pounds of the sum, and applied them to paying off his own debt to the Rio Negro creditors: The remaining three thousand, sent herewith, Guy had recovered, almost by a miracle, from that false creature’s grasp, and he returned them now, in proof of the fact, in Montague Nevitt’s own pocket-book, which Cyril would no doubt immediately recognise. For himself, he meant to leave England at once, at least for the present. Where he was going he wouldn’t as yet let Cyril know. He hoped in a new country to recover his honour and rehabilitate his name. Meanwhile, it was mainly for Cyril’s sake that he fled—and for one other person’s too—to avoid a scandal. He hoped Cyril would be happy with the woman of his choice; for it was to insure their joint happiness that he was accepting the offer of escape so unexpectedly tendered him.
He sealed up the letter—that incriminating letter, that might mean so much more than he ever put into it—and took it out to the post, with the three thousand pounds and Montague Nevitt’s pocket-book in a separate packet. Proud Kelmscott as he was by birth and nature, he slunk through the streets like a guilty man, fancying all eyes were fixed suspiciously upon him. Then he returned to the hotel in a burning heat, went into the smoking room on purpose like an honest man, and rang the bell for the servant boldly.
“Bring my bill, please,” he said to the waiter who answered it. “I go at seven o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter replied, with official promptitude. “Directly, sir. What number?”
“I forget the number,” Guy answered, with a beating heart; “but the name’s Billington.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter responded once more, in the self-same unvaried tone, and went off to the office.
Guy waited in profound suspense, half expecting the waiter to come back for the number again; but to his immense surprise and mystification, the fellow didn’t. Instead of that, he returned some minutes later, all respectful attention, bringing the bill on a salver, duly headed and ............