Demos Part 98

'Those men are on the committee. One of them got a letter this morning--anonymous. It said they were to be on their guard against me.

Said the Company's a swindle--that I knew it--that I've got money out of the people on false pretences. And Hilary's gone--gone off--taking all he could lay hands on. The letter says so--I don't know. It says I'm thick with the secretary--a man I never even saw. That he's a well-known swindler--Delancey his name is. And these fellows believe it--demand that I shall prove I'm innocent. What proof can I give? They think I kept out of the way on purpose this morning.'

He ceased speaking, and Adela stood mute, looking him in the face.

She was appalled on his account. She did not love him; too often his presence caused her loathing. But of late she had been surprised into thinking more highly of some of his qualities than it had hitherto been possible for her to do. She could never forget that he toiled first and foremost for his own advancement to a very cheap reputation; he would not allow her to lose sight of it had she wished. But during the present winter she had discerned in him a genuine zeal to help the suffering, a fervour in kindly works of which she had not believed him capable. Very slowly the conviction had come to her, but in the end she could not resist it. One evening, in telling her of the hideous misery he had been amongst, his voice failed and she saw moisture in his eyes. Was his character changing? Had she wronged him in attaching too much importance to a fault which was merely on the surface? Oh, but there were too many indisputable charges against him. Yet a man's moral nature may sometimes be strengthened by experience of the evil he has wrought. All this rushed through her mind as she now stood gazing at him.

'But how can they credit an anonymous letter?' she said. 'How can they believe the worst of you before making inquiries?'

'They have been to the office of the Company. Everything is upside down.

They say Hilary isn't to be found.'

'Who can have written such a letter?'

'How do I know? I have enemies enough, no doubt. Who hasn't that makes himself a leader?'

There was the wrong note again. It discouraged her; she was silent.

'Look here, Adela,' he said, 'do you believe this?'

'Believe it!'

'Do you think I'm capable of doing a thing like that--sc.r.a.ping together by pennies the money of the poorest of the poor just to use it for my own purposes--could I do that?'

'You know I do not believe it.'

'But you don't speak as if you were certain. There's something--But how am I to prove I'm innocent? How can I make people believe I wasn't in the plot? They've only my word--who'll think that enough? Anyone can tell a lie and stick to it, if there's no positive proof against him.

How am I to make _you_ believe that I was taken in?'

'But I tell you that a doubt of your innocence does not enter my mind.

If it were necessary, I would stand up in public before all who accused you and declare that they were wrong. I do not need your a.s.surance. I recognise that it would be impossible for you to commit such a crime.'

'Well, it does me good to hear you say that,' he replied, with light of hope in his eyes. 'I wanted to feel sure of that. You might have thought that'--he sank his voice--'that because I could think of destroying that will--'

'Don't speak of that!' she interrupted, with a gesture of pain. 'I say that I believe you. It is enough. Don't speak about me any more. Think of what has to be done.'

'I have promised to be in Clerkenwell at eight o'clock. There'll be a meeting. I shall do my best to show that I am innocent. You'll look after Alice? It's awful to have to leave her whilst she's like that.'

'Trust me. I will not leave her side for a moment. The doctor will be here again to-night.'

A thought struck him.

'Send out the girl for an evening paper. There may be something in it.'

The paper was obtained. One of the first headings his eye fell upon was: 'Rumoured Collapse of a Public Company. Disappearance of the Secretary.'

He showed it to Adela, and they read together. She saw that the finger with which he followed the lines quivered like a leaf. It was announced in a brief paragraph that the Secretary of the Irish Dairy Company was missing: that he seemed to have gone off with considerable sums.

Moreover, that there were rumours in the City of a startling kind, relative to the character of the Company itself. The name of the secretary was Mr. Robert Delancey, but that was now believed to be a mere _alias_. The police were actively at work.

'It'll be the ruin of me!' Mutimer gasped. 'I can never prove that I knew nothing. You see, nothing's said about Hilary. It's that fellow Delancey who has run.'

'You must find Mr. Hilary,' said Adela urgently. 'Where does he live?'

'I have no idea. I only had the office address. Perhaps it isn't even his real name. It'll be my ruin.'

Adela was astonished to see him so broken down. He let himself sink upon a chair; his head and hands fell.

'But I can't understand why you should despair so!' she exclaimed.

'You will speak to the meeting to-night. If the money is lost you will restore it. If you have been imprudent, that is no crime.'

'It is--it is--when I had money of that kind entrusted to me! They won't hear me. They have condemned me already. What use is it to talk to them?

They'll say everything comes to smash in my hands.'

She spoke to him with such words of strengthening as one of his comrades might have used. She did not feel the tenderness of a wife, and had no power to a.s.sume it. But her voice was brave and true. She had made his interest, his reputation, her own. By degrees he recovered from the blow, and let her words give him heart.

'You're right,' he said, 'I'm behaving like a fool; I couldn't go on different if I was really guilty. Who wrote that letter? I never saw the letter before, as far as I know. I wanted to keep it, but they wouldn't let me--trust them! What black guards they are I They're jealous of me. They know they can't speak like I do, that they haven't the same influence I have. So they're ready to believe the first lie that's brought against me. Let them look to themselves to-night! I'll give them a piece of my mind--see if I don't! What's to-day? Friday. On Sunday I'll have the biggest meeting ever gathered in the East End. If they shout out against me, I'll tell them to their faces that they're mean-spirited curs. They haven't the courage to rise and get by force what they'll never have by asking for it, and when a man does his best to help them they throw mud at him!'

'But they won't do so,' Adela urged. 'Don't be unjust. Wait and see.

They will shout _for_, not _against_ you.'

'Why didn't you keep 'Arry here?' he asked suddenly.

'He refused to stay. I gave him money.'

'You should have forced him to stay How can I have a brother of my own living a life like that? You did wrong to give him money. He'll only use it to make a beast of himself. I must find him again; I can't let him go to ruin.'

'Arry had come back to Holloway the previous night to inform Adela that her husband might not return till morning. As she said, it had been impossible to detain him. He was too far gone in unconventionality to spend a night under a decent roof. Home-sickness for the gutter possessed him.

In the meantime Alice had become quieter. It was half-past six; Mutimer had to be at the meeting-place in Clerkenwell by eight. Adela sat by Alice whilst the servant hurriedly prepared a meal; then the girl took her place, and she went down to her husband. They were in the middle of their meal when they heard the front-door slam. Mutimer started up.

'Who's that? Who's gone out?'

Adela ran to the foot of the stairs and called the servant's name softly. It was a minute before the girl appeared.

'Who has just gone out, Mary?'

'Gone out? No one, mum!'

'Is Mrs. Rodman lying still?'

The girl went to see. She had left Alice for a few moments previously.

She appeared again at the head of the stairs with a face of alarm.

'Mrs. Rodman isn't there, mum!'

Mutimer flew up the staircase. Alice was nowhere to be found. It could not be doubted that she had fled in a delirious state. Richard rushed into the street, but it was very dark, and rain was falling. There was no trace of the fugitive. He came back to the door, where Adela stood; he put out his hand and held her arm as if she needed support.

'Give me my hat! She'll die in the street, in the rain! I'll go one way; the girl must go the other. My hat!'

'I will go one way myself,' said Adela hurriedly. 'You must take an umbrella: it pours. Mary! my waterproof!'

They ran in opposite directions. It was a quiet by-street, with no shops to cast light upon the pavement. Adela encountered a constable before she had gone very far, and begged for his a.s.sistance. He promised to be on the look-out, but advised her to go on a short distance to the police-station and leave a description of the missing woman. She did so; then, finding the search hopeless in this quarter, turned homewards. Mutimer was still absent, but he appeared in five minutes; as unsuccessful as herself. She told him of her visit to the station.