Well, now, at any rate, she must devote herself to the task which she had undertaken. She felt as a sister might feel who had been suddenly commissioned to provide a home within twenty-four hours for an invalided traveler; and she set about the work with enthusiasm.
She began by taking Milly in some measure into her confidence, and giving her a number of directions as to what she was to do in the course of the day. Then she hired a cab, and went to a house-agent whose name she remembered. That seemed the quickest way of getting what she wanted—a small furnished house, cheerful and yet retired, which she could take at any rate for a month, and for longer if she needed it. The agent by good chance had the very thing she asked for. He turned over the leaves of his register, and presently came upon a desirable bijou residence, plainly but adequately furnished, containing three reception rooms and five bedrooms, conservatory, with large and well-stocked garden, lawn and shrubbery, coach-house and stable. Vacant for three months; very moderate terms to a suitable tenant. That sounded well. The "very moderate terms" came to something more than Lettice wanted to give; but she had a hundred pounds in her pocket, and a spirit which disdained to grudge in such a service.
So, having journeyed to Chiswick, and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month's rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, who had expected this demand, and was prepared for it, gave the name of James Graham. She ought not to have made use of him without asking him beforehand. She might have referred to the owner of Maple Cottage, where she had lived when last in London, or even to her publisher. But she wanted to go and see her old friend Clara; and, woman-like, did a more important thing to serve as a pretext for a less important.
Clara Graham was delighted to see her again, and the two women had a long and confidential talk.
"I, at any rate," said Clara, "have never doubted his innocence, and I was sure that you would not."
"Yet you never told me what troubles had fallen upon him!"
"My dear, I thought you must have heard about it all. But the fact was that James asked me not to mention the trial. Remember, you were not well at the time; and it was a difficult case. I could not quite assume that your interest would be strong enough to justify me in risking the loss of your health—perhaps of your life. Really, it is a hard question to deal with—like one of those cases of conscience (didn't they call them?) which men used to argue for the sake of having something to do. I stood up for poor Mr. Walcott with my husband; but you know it is useless to argue against him."
"He believes with the rest of them?"
"Everybody believes alike. I never heard of one who thought that he did not do it."
"Only yourself!"