My last day in Upsidonia had arrived, and the time was fast approaching when I was about to rob that country of its brightest jewel. Towards the evening, feeling restless, I set out for a walk. Miriam was with her mother, and as there was no one else whose company I desired at that time I went alone.
I thought I might as well see exactly how long it would take to walk to the other side of Culbut so as to run no risk of meeting many people when I should take the same road with Miriam, very early the next morning.
When I got into the busier part of Culbut, I bought an evening paper, and running my eye idly over its columns, came upon one headed: "The Truth about John Howard at Last. Arrest Shortly Expected. New Peer Victimised."
I took refuge upon the top of a tram-car, and read the column through. It stated that the Master of McGillicuddy, the son of the respected Highland Baron of that ilk, had been brought to the office of the paper by another highly respected nobleman—in whom I had no difficulty in recognising Lord Potter—and had authorised them to announce, for the protection of all honest people, that there was a dangerous criminal in their midst, whom they would do well to beware of.
A prisoner undergoing a term of penal servitude for representing himself as a professor of dead languages, and practising a long series of cruel frauds on young students, many of whom had lost places in the monthly examinations owing to his empirical methods of tuition, had escaped from gaol some weeks before. He was known to have gone south, no doubt with the idea of practising the same frauds on the less sophisticated scholars of Upsidonia. There was no doubt whatever that the person already arrested on his arrival in Culbut for a gross insult to a highly respected personage was this escaped prisoner, masquerading under another name. The police, who had hitherto failed to trace the escaped convict, had been notified, and, by the time these words were in print, would no doubt have got him once more safely under lock and key.
Unless the paper was mistaken in this last statement, I had probably passed the police on my way into Culbut, and they were now at Magnolia Hall awaiting my return. According to the descriptions given by the Master of McGillicuddy of the escaped prisoner, he might have been my twin brother dressed up in my own clothes.
I need not reproduce the scorn with which the journal, which was that chiefly read by the members of the dirty set, expressed itself about the newly created peer, who had been taken in by this unscrupulous criminal, and had even allowed him to become engaged to his daughter. It pained me greatly, and would certainly pain Lord Magnolia no less when he should come to read it.
The blow was a stunning one. If there was such a criminal at large as had been described by the Master of McGillicuddy, which I had no reason to doubt, it would be very difficult to persuade the police that I was not that criminal. Indeed, how could I expect to persuade them of anything! I could give no account of myself that would satisfy them that they were arresting an innocent person, and even if the Highland police eventually disclaimed me, I knew it would take some time to get them to Culbut, and in the meantime I should certainly be kept in custody. It was quite certain that the moment I returned to Magnolia Hall I should be arrested, even if I got so far, and at dawn the next morning, when Miriam and I ought to have been starting on the happiest of journeys together, I should be most comfortably housed in prison.
The more I thought of it, the more angry I became at this most unkind stroke of fate, and the more angry with the preposterous Lord Potter, who had undoubtedly brought it upon me. I could not get at Miriam to tell her to start alone and join me somewhere on the road. I could do nothing. I was robbed of all I had hoped for as it seemed just within my grasp.