It was their first meeting since the result of Eleanor’s trial. They were alone in the room, and Prescott at once addressed the other:
‘Tressamer, what have you to say for yourself? I told you yesterday that I should hold you responsible. You disobeyed my advice, and that of everybody else. You set the judge and jury against you, and the result is what you were told it would be. I gave you fair warning, and I tell you now that, unless you have some reason for your conduct of which I know nothing, I cannot look upon you as a friend.’
Tressamer pinched in his lips hard as he listened to this.
‘I might have expected it,’ he said. ‘We all know that love is stronger than friendship. The first woman that likes can break up the strongest attachments of some men.’
‘Silence!’ cried Prescott. ‘I am not going to bandy retorts with you. Ever since we were boys I have liked you and befriended you, and borne with your waywardness. You have outraged all your other friends long ago, but I bore with everything till now. But this is too much. Where a life is at stake, to indulge in your freaks of eccentricity! It is murder morally. What are you better than the man who killed that wretched woman?’
Tressamer shook with anger.
‘Be careful, Prescott! I will stand a great deal from you, but you are going too far now. You know as well as I do that her life is in no danger. What is old Buller’s opinion worth on a criminal case? Wiseman is worth ten of him, and he is in our favour. The C.C.R. will save her.’
‘Wretched man! Have you no heart, no moral sense, that you talk like that? As if a mere escape on a technical point could give any comfort to a woman like her! One would think you were wanting in some ingredient of human nature. What does Eleanor herself say?’
‘I haven’t seen her,’ was the muttered reply.