"Yes, I think so—slowly."
"Surgery's the only thing sometimes; when you can't cure, you must cut. At any rate we won't think hardly of our beautiful friend. I don't believe, though, that you're thinking of her at all, you young rascal! You're thinking of nothing but that train at four o'clock."
Arthur was silent a moment or two. "I daresay that some day, when it's a bit farther off, I shall be able to look at it all better—to see just what happened and what it came to. But I can't do that now. I—I haven't time." They had finished lunch. He came and rested his hand on the old man's shoulder. "At any rate, it's brought me your friendship. I can't begin to tell you what that is to me, sir."
Sir Christopher looked up at him. "I can tell you what it is to me, though. It's a son for my barren old age—and I'm quite ready to take a daughter too, Arthur."
Arthur went off by the four o'clock train, with his copy of The Times in his pocket. But out of that pocket it never emerged, save in the privacy of his den, and there it was hidden carefully. Never in all his life did he confess that he had "happened" to bring it down with him. For, on the platform at Hilsey, the first thing he saw was Judith waiting for him. As soon as he put his head out of the window, she ran towards him, brandishing The Times in her hand. No motive to produce his copy, no need to confess that he had brought it!
His attitude towards Judith's copy was one of apparent indifference. It could not be maintained in face of her excitement and curiosity. The report seemed to have had on her much the same effect as skating. She proposed to walk home, and let the car take his luggage, and, as soon as they were clear of the station, she cried, "Now you've got to tell me all—all—about it! What are the Rolls, and who's the Master of them? What's Lord Justice Leonard like? And the other one—what's his name?—Pratt? And what was it in your speech that they thought so clever?"
"I thought perhaps you wouldn't see it," said Arthur, not mentioning that he had taken his own measures to meet that contingency, had it arisen.
"Not see it! Why, I hunt all through those wretched cases every morning of my life, looking for that blessed dog of yours! So I shall, till it's found, or buried, or something. Now begin at the beginning, and tell me just how everything happened."
"I say, this isn't the shortest way home, you know."
"I know it isn't. Begin now directly, Arthur." She had hold of his arm now, The Times still in her other hand. "Godfrey's quite excited too—for him. He'd have come, only he's got a bad cold; and Margaret stayed to comfort him. Begin now!"