“As long as he had a leg to stand on,” he persisted emphatically, “he should have run. Why, I would have crawled on my hands and knees sooner than let you go away from me in such a case! Audrey, it is hard, terrible, to see you used like this, to know that you are not appreciated as you ought to be by the man who has the blessing and honour of being your husband. No, I won’t stop, I won’t be shut up! I tell you it makes my blood boil to think of your being exposed to the insolence of those men, who think, because they are well-born, they have a right to trample under foot all decency, all duty, in dealing with the rest of mankind. Oh, Audrey Audrey,” and as he spoke he came nearer to her, his eyes ablaze with passion, “forgive me if I say too much, but it’s because I feel, I feel as if my own heart would burst to think of it!”
Although he spoke with intense passion, with torrential excitement, he took care not to wound her susceptibilities by so much as a too near approach. Keeping near her, indeed, but clenching his fists as if to keep away from her the hands that longed to touch hers, hovering over her rather than assuming any airs of authority or insolence, Mr. Candover succeeded in rousing in her a spark of the gratitude he was so anxious to excite. Seeing his opportunity in a certain softening of her features, a relaxing of her attitude, he was drawing stealthily nearer when, suddenly realising her danger, her weakness, she raised her head, and went on with her exculpation of Gerard.
“He cannot choose, he is in the hands of others,” she said. “For not only is he so ill that there’s a doubt whether we can save him, but his uncle has undertaken to sift the evidence against him, the false evidence that got his conviction. So that on Lord Clanfield may be said to depend not only his life, but his honour.”
Mr. Candover seemed struck by this fact. So strongly impressed was he by it indeed that he at once changed his attitude, and from the passionate, enthusiastic friend became the cool-headed, cautious, sceptical man of the world.
“They had better leave things alone,” said he drily, after a pause. “To prove him innocent would be—excuse my saying so—extremely difficult. Indeed, it’s not at all likely that, with all his social influence, Lord Clanfield will be able to get the case reopened. It is all done, ended, and well-nigh forgotten by this time. Gerard had better let sleeping dogs lie.”
There was a deep note of warning, almost of menace in his tone, which could not fail to impress Audrey, even while it roused her indignation.
“I know you believe him guilty. You have said so,” she said, with fire. “But I know that he is innocent. And if Lord Clanfield were to heap up insults upon me, and were to refuse ever to speak to me again, I would forgive him everything if—if only—he would save my darling Gerard’s life, and prove his innocence to the world!”
“Your innocence does you credit, Madame,” sneered Mr. Candover as Audrey rose and walked away.
CHAPTER XIV
It was one of the terrible evenings which Audrey had begun to hate, pleasant though every one tried to make them to her. The guests were lively and bright, always complimentary and sympathetic to herself, and observant of the rules of decorum in her presence, however high the play might be in the next room. They even broke up earlier now than they had done at first, and before one o’clock they were all gone.