vanished again.
‘Has that struck you?’ he said, and seemed about to add something more. But he restrained himself, and merely added: ‘The less you and I talk about it the better, perhaps. Coming out?’
And they left the chambers together.
But though Tressamer ceased to discuss the subject with his friend, he could not dismiss it from his mind. The sparkling wit, the wild, extravagant humour, for which he had been famous, seemed to have withered up in the furnace of his terrible grief. He lunched with Prescott in almost dead silence, and as soon as it was over got up hurriedly and disappeared.
He had truthfully described himself as having been deep in the case from its commencement. When the news of what had happened at Porthstone reached the town of Abertaff he was walking in the High Street alone. He saw the unusual excitement, and meeting an acquaintance, learned from him that Miss Lewis had been murdered.
‘And they say it was done by her companion, a girl named Owen,’ added the man.
Tressamer turned white, gasped for breath, and cried out loudly:
‘It’s a lie! I swear she is innocent!’
In another moment he had darted off to a cab-stand, and was on his way to the station.
There he had one of those sickening waits for a train which are inevitable on such occasions. Twice he was on the point of ordering a special, but each time he restrained himself by the thought that by the time it was ready the ordinary train would be nearly due. He shunned the gloomy waiting-room, and strode up and down the narrow platform with swift, excited strides.
The porters and newspaper-boys stared as he rushed to and fro, hardly heeding the piles of luggage with which railway servants seek to break the dull monotony of a platform promenade. There was French blood in Tressamer: short, dark, thick-necked, yet far from stout in figure, he possessed the strain of sombre passion which runs through the blood of the Celtic races. He could no more control himself in deference to the officials of Abertaff Station than a madman when his frenzy is on him can conceal it from his keepers.
At last the train drew up. He sprang into a carriage, and impatiently endured the journey down to the seaside. Arrived there, he proceeded instantly to the police-station and demanded an interview with Miss Owen.
At first there was some difficulty, but Tressamer was not to be checked.
‘I am her legal adviser,’ he announced. ‘I am a member of the Bar, and I consider it of vital importance that I should see the prisoner at once. If you refuse, I shall wire straight to the Home Office.’
This threat produced its natural effect. The police, in doubt as to their powers, gave way, and he was taken into the cell where Eleanor had been secured.
If Eleanor had not wept when she was accused of the terrible crime, neither was she weeping now. She was sitting in a dull, stony apathy, from which she was hardly aroused by the sound of the barrister’s familiar name. She looked up, it is true, and gazed at him with lack-lustre eyes. But she uttered no word.
He, on his part, waited till the constable had withdrawn. Then he advanced a step from the door, and said:
‘Eleanor, you are innocent. Will you let me save you?’
Then at last the light came into her eyes. Then at last the unnatural stiffness faded out of her frame. Then at last the awful coldness loosed its hold of her heart, and answering, ‘George, I do not deserve your help,’ she gave way to a tempest of tears.
He waited till the storm had spent its first fury. Every shade of anguish passed across his face meanwhile. But he strove to master his feelings, and to put a commonplace expression into his voice, as he said at length:
‘I have been in Abertaff the last two days – since I left you.’ His voice trembled an instant, but he went on: ‘I heard the news this morning, and came down at once. I want to defend you. I want you to accept my services as a token that you still look on me as a friend, in spite of all that has happened.’
‘I don’t know how to answer you,’ she murmured. ‘The more generous you are, the more ashamed I feel. I ought not to take your help. And yet you are the only creature in the world who has not forsaken me.’
‘Don’t say that, Eleanor. No one else knows you as I do. No one else feels to you – but I won’t say anything about that. One stipulation I must make. You are not to thank me – not one word.’
And with a stern gesture he waved her off, as she made a movement as if to throw herself at his feet.
‘But you must forgive me,’ she said. ‘Whether I am as wicked as you told me I was when we parted or not, you must tell me that you take me for what I am, that you expect no change in me.’ She paused a moment, and then cried out with sudden vehemence: ‘Oh, I have done you injustice! I didn’t know how noble you could be! But it is too late; I cannot alter now.’
An angry throb convulsed the man during her first words. At the end he ground his teeth and clenched his hands together.
‘Silence, Eleanor! If you speak to me like that again, I shall go. There are to be no thanks, no praises. Never refer to the past. I know you and understand. If I cannot tear all hope out of my heart, what is that to you? I ask nothing, and will take nothing unless it is freely given.’
He ceased, and she looked at him with a mixture of gratitude and fear.
Then he referred to her dreadful situation.
‘I needn’t tell you, Eleanor, that as your counsel you must confide in me fully. I have heard the story so far as it is public, and up to now I may tell you that, as a matter of law, you are in no real danger.’
Eleanor stared at him.
‘In no danger? What do you mean? Is the murderer discovered?’
‘No, and never may be. But neither is the body.’
‘Why, what difference does that make?’
‘Don’t you know?’ answered the barrister. ‘I thought most people knew that till the body was discovered no one could be convicted of murder.’
A ray of hope shone out in the prisoner’s face.
‘Then do you mean that Miss Lewis may be alive still?’ she asked quickly.
‘No, no. Nobody doubts that she is dead, nor that someone has killed her. But the point is this, that you cannot be legally tried and convicted. The body has disappeared.’
The heavy shade of despair settled down once more.
‘What good is that?’ she answered reproachfully. ‘If they believe me guilty it makes it worse for me, because I can never be acquitted. I shall be suspected till I die. Oh, I would rather suffer death, I think.’
‘Hush, hush!’ he exclaimed, shocked and agitated. ‘Listen to me, and try to bear it as best you can. The evidence against you is simply overwhelming. Probably I am the only man in the world who believes in your innocence.’
‘Except the murderer,’ she interrupted.
‘Except the murderer, of course. But what I want to say is this – as things stand now no jury that ever breathed would acquit you. Only a miracle can reveal
