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‘You contented yourself,’ said Munden, laughing, ‘with giving a promissory-note for the whole legacy.’

‘Yes; but try to understand. Emma came up to my room at supper-time, and as usual we talked. I didn’t say anything about my uncle’s death–yet I felt the necessity of telling her creep fatally upon me. There was a conflict in my mind, between common-sense and that awful sentimentality which is my curse. When Emma came up again after supper, she mentioned that her mother was gone with a friend to a theatre. “Why don’t you go?” I said. “Oh, I don’t go anywhere.” “But after all,” I urged consolingly, “August isn’t exactly the time for enjoying the theatre.” She admitted it wasn’t; but there was the Exhibition at Earl’s Court, she had heard so much of it, and wanted to go. “Then suppose we go together one of these evenings?”

‘You see? Idiot!–and I couldn’t help it. My tongue spoke these imbecile words in spite of my brain. All very well, if I had meant what another man would; but I didn’t, and the girl knew I didn’t. And she looked at me–and then–why, mere brute instinct did the rest–no, not mere instinct, for it was complicated with that idiot desire to see how the girl would look, hear what she would say, when she knew that I had given her eighty thousand pounds. You can’t understand?’

‘As a bit of morbid psychology–yes.’

‘And the frantic proceeding made me happy! For an hour or two I behaved as if I loved the girl with all my soul. And afterwards I was still happy. I walked up and down my bedroom, making plans for the future–for her education, and so on. I saw all sorts of admirable womanly qualities in her. I was in love with her, and there’s an end of it!’

Munden mused for a while, then laid down his pipe.

‘Remarkably suggestive, Shergold, the name of the street in which you have been living. Well, you don’t go back there?’

‘No. I have come to my senses. I shall go to an hotel for to-night, and send presently for all my things.’

‘To be sure, and on Saturday–or on Friday evening, if you like, we leave England.’

It was evident that Shergold rejoiced with trembling.

‘But I can’t stick to the lie.’ he said. ‘I shall compensate the girl. You see, by running away I make confession that there’s something wrong. I shall see a solicitor and put the matter into his hands.’

‘As you please. But let the solicitor exercise his own discretion as to damages.’

‘Damages!’ Shergold pondered the word. ‘I suppose she won’t drag me into court–make a public ridicule of me? If so, there’s an end of my hopes. I couldn’t go among people after that.’

‘I don’t see why not. But your solicitor will probably manage the affair. They have their methods,’ Munden added drily.

Early the next morning Shergold despatched a telegram to Maze Pond, addressed to his landlady. It said that he would be kept away by business for a day or two. On Friday he attended his uncle’s funeral, and that evening he left Charing Cross with Harvey Munden, en route for Como.

There, a fortnight later, Shergold received from his solicitor a communication which put an end to his feigning of repose and hopefulness. That he did but feign, Harvey Munden felt assured; signs of a troubled conscience, or at all events of restless nerves, were evident in all his doing and conversing; now he once more made frank revelation of his weakness.

‘There’s the devil to pay. She won’t take money. She’s got a lawyer, and is going to bring me into court. I’ve authorised Reckitt to offer as much as five thousand pounds,–it’s no good. He says her lawyer has evidently encouraged her to hope for enormous damages, and then she’ll have the satisfaction of making me the town-talk. It’s all up with me, Munden. My hopes are vanished like–what is it in Dante?–il fumo in aere ed in aqua la schiuma!’