“I gave Lady Rose the paper. He raved most horribly for an hour or two, as if all the foul talk of his pot-house had got into his brain,” said Herbert, with a shudder. “Rector, Rector, pray for me, that I mayn’t come out with that at any rate. It has haunted me ever since. Well, at last he slept, and woke up sinking but conscious, knew me, and began to ask if this was death, and was frightened, clutching at me, and asking to be held, and what he could do. I told him at least he could undo a wrong, if he would only authorize us to use what he said to clear Douglas; and then, as Sister Margaret had come across, I wrote as well as I could: “George Gadley authorizes what he said to the Rev. Julius Charnock to be used as evidence;” and I suppose he saw us sign it, if he could see at all, for his sight was nearly gone.”
Julius drew a long breath.
“And now, what was it?” said Herbert.
“Well, the trio—Moy, young Proudfoot, and Tom Vivian—detained a letter of my mother’s, with a cheque in it, and threw the blame of it on Archie Douglas. They thought no one was in the office but themselves; but Gadley was a clerk there, and was in the outer room, where he heard all. He came to Moy afterwards, and has been preying on him for hush-money ever since.”
“And this will set things straight?”
“Yes. How to set about the public justification I do not yet see; but with your father, and all the rest, Archie’s innocence will be as plain as it always has been to us.”
“Where is he?”
“On an ostrich farm at Natal.”
“Whew!—we must have him home. Jenny can’t be spared. Poor Jenny, when she hears that, it will make all other things light to her.”
“What is their address?”