“I swear to you that it will be the best part ever written by me, my dear friend. You have earned my everlasting gratitude.”
“Ah! was the lady so grateful as all that?” cried the actress, looking at him with one of those arch smiles of hers which even Sir Joshua Reynolds could not quite translate to show the next century what manner of woman was the first Lady Teazle, for the part of the capricious young wife of the elderly Sir Peter was woven around the fascinating country girl's smile of Mrs. Abington.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Goldsmith kept his word. He took a hackney-coach to the Temple, and was alert all the time he was driving lest Jackson and his friends might be waiting to make an attack upon him. He reached his chambers without any adventure, however, and on locking his doors, took out the second parcel of letters and set himself to peruse their contents.
He had no need to read them all—the first that came to his hand was sufficient to make him aware of the nature of the correspondence. It was perfectly plain that the man had been endeavouring to traffic with the rebels, and it was equally certain that the rebel leaders had shown themselves to be too honourable to take advantage of the offers which he had made to them. If this correspondence had come into the hands of Cornwallis he would have hanged the fellow on the nearest tree instead of merely turning him out of his regiment and shipping him back to England as a suspected traitor.
As he locked the letters once again in his desk he felt that there was indeed every reason to fear that Jackson would not rest until he had obtained possession of such damning evidence of his guilt. He would certainly either make the attempt to get back the letters, or leave the country, in order to avoid the irretrievable ruin which would fall upon him if any one of the packet went into the hands of a magistrate; and Goldsmith was strongly of the belief that the man would adopt the former course.
Only for an instant, as he laid down the compromising document, did he ask himself how it was possible that Mary Horneck should ever have been so blind as to be attracted to such a man, and to believe in his honesty.
He knew enough of the nature of womankind to be aware of the glamour which attaches to a soldier who has been wounded in fighting the enemies of his country. If Mary had been less womanly than she showed herself to be, he would not have loved her so well as he did. Her womanly weaknesses were dear to him, and the painful evidence that he had of the tenderness of her heart only made him feel that she was all the more a woman, and therefore all the more to be loved.