"Yes, sir."
"Because I'm a clergyman, and it's a disgrace to the cloth!"
This explanation was a sudden idea impulsively expressed; but the inspector's face was its tacit confirmation.
"Is he here still?" demanded the prisoner.
"Yes, sir, he is."
"You can say I've been taken on a false and abominable charge," cried Carlton, "and I don't want my liberty till the falsehood's proved! But I am equally obliged to Canon Wilders," he added with less scorn, "and you will kindly tell him so with my compliments."
But he paced his cell in a curious twitter for one who had entered it without a qualm. In all his trouble this was the first word from a clerical neighbour: to a man they had stood aloof from him in his shame. His own movements were in part responsible: he had disappeared from view. Nor had he expected or coveted their sympathy; yet, now that one of them had come forward, Carlton was conscious of a wound he had not felt before. There was Preston of Linkworth—but his wife would account for him. There was Bosanquet of Bedingfield, and there were others. They might have inquired at the infirmary (Preston had), but he had never heard of it. As for Wilders, he was a worthy man of local mark, for whom Carlton had preached upon occasion; one prosperous alike in worldly welfare and in spiritual satisfaction; the last person to go into disgrace; and yet, by reason of a certain officiousness of character, the first to come forward as he had done. Carlton had no wish to be ungracious or ungrateful, or to make a personal matter of the signing of the warrant; but he could not face his fellows with this new charge hanging over him, nor was he going free by the favour of living man. On the other hand, he pondered more upon his brother clergymen that Saturday night in gaol than in all these eight weeks past. And the sense of mere social downfall, the dullest of his aches hitherto, became suddenly acute, so that for that alone he wished they had not put him in prison. But for all the rest he cared as little as before, and showed as little interest in the pending event.
His indifference quite troubled the inspector, who evinced a desire to show the prisoner every possible consideration, and was an early visitor next morning.
"That ain't no business of mine, sir; but you'll be wanting to see a solicitor during the day?"
"Why so?" asked Carlton.