Gerard denied the whole story of the man Gossett as a fabrication from beginning to end. But there was this fact against him, that, whereas there was no sign whatever that Gossett had been spending money freely or that he betted or was addicted to suspicious company, Gerard and his wife, on the other hand, had undoubtedly been living somewhat beyond their means, that they had got into debt, and that they were being harassed by creditors.
While a more condemnatory fact still came out in the fact that the young clerk and his wife had been at the Epsom Spring Meeting with some friends, and that Gerard, while denying that he had had any but trifling bets, admitted that he had lost money there.
Moreover, no such person as “Joseph Partridge” was to be found or heard of; and the other two cheques, details of the cashing of which were not so complete, were both made out in names equally impossible to trace to any actual person.
It was a foregone conclusion that the case would have to go to trial, and when the eve of the fateful day arrived, the depression and certainty of his conviction grew so strongly upon poor Gerard that Audrey, who remained outwardly calm and brave by a great effort, followed him about from room to room, with an appalling fear at her heart that he would never face the ordeal.
At last he turned suddenly to face her, and his haggard eyes, with all the boyish light gone out of them, looked dismally into her anxious, loving face.
“Why do you follow me?” he asked abruptly.
She tried to answer.
“Because—because——”
Then at last she broke down, and for the very first time in all those dreadful days she let herself go in a violent passion of weeping.
Gerard sat down in a low arm-chair, and strained her to him.