'Can you tell me who this Litvinoff is, then? Is he the Count Michael Litvinoff that I know, or knew? If so, did he marry, and when did he marry her? and why did she leave him?—for she did leave some man; she told me so.'
'Ah,' said Petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question I answered because I thought you were really concerned in knowing the answer. Forgive me, these other matters I think do not concern you.'
'Well,' Richard answered, 'I knew that girl when she was a baby, and I've always been fond of her, and I should naturally be glad to hear anything about her. I am glad to see her looking so much better, and better cared for than when I met her last.'
Petrovitch bent his head silently.
They had stopped by this time just opposite the Borough Market.
'I am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, I don't know that I have any right to ask you more. I must thank you for telling me what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.'
Petrovitch bowed; young Ferrier did the same, and they parted—Petrovitch turned across the bridge, while Richard retraced his steps towards the station. He made his way to the telegraph office, and sent off this message:—'Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital, London, to Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale.—Please wire me my brother's address at once if you know it.'
Then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he felt more wretched than he had ever been before. He had always believed in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment. He had been so utterly mistaken—so wrong all round. Everything had seemed to point to his brother's guilt. Now everything seemed to have pointed to his innocence. If Richard's eyes had not been so blinded by—what? It was a moment for seeing things clearly, and Richard saw that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that had taken place in the autumn. That meeting in Spray's Buildings—of course it was the likeliest thing in the world that Roland really had seen Litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the young man ground his teeth. How completely he had been fooled! It must be the same Litvinoff—for had not Alice been present at his lecture in Soho? How had Alice met such a man? Oh, that might have happened in a thousand ways. Had Litvinoff really married her? Richard thought he had not. He remembered Litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had not. Felt sure? How could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong?
What fearful blunders he had made—what a horrible muddle he had got everything into—what irretrievable mischief he had done! But, though he blamed himself deeply and bitterly, he still, not unnaturally, blamed Litvinoff with still more bitter earnestness. One thing only was clear to him. He must find Roland at once, tell him all the circumstances, and beg his pardon. It would be all right again between him and his brother, towards whom he now felt a rush of reactionary affection. But how about the mill hands, now scattered far and wide beyond recall—beyond the reach of his help—through this same mad folly of his? In an impulse to do something for at least one of those who had suffered through him, he turned off from the hospital and took a hansom to his rooms, where he unlocked his desk, and, taking a five-pound note from his slender stock of money, enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed to Mrs Hatfield at the address she had given him, in a hand not his own. He would do more for them when he and his brother had begun to work the mill again. That would be one big result of his new knowledge. His medical studies would be at an end, and he would be once more Ferrier of Thornsett. But that was poor compensation for all the rest.