Early the next morning Shergold despatched a telegram to Maze Pond, addressed to his landlady. It said that he would be kept away by business for a day or two. On Friday he attended his uncle's funeral, and that evening he left Charing Cross with Harvey Munden, en route for Como.
There, a fortnight later, Shergold received from his solicitor a communication which put an end to his feigning of repose and hopefulness. That he did but feign, Harvey Munden felt assured; signs of a troubled conscience, or at all events of restless nerves, were evident in all his doing and conversing; now he once more made frank revelation of his weakness.
'There's the devil to pay. She won't take money. She's got a lawyer, and is going to bring me into court. I've authorised Reckitt to offer as much as five thousand pounds,—it's no good. He says her lawyer has evidently encouraged her to hope for enormous damages, and then she'll have the satisfaction of making me the town-talk. It's all up with me, Munden. My hopes are vanished like—what is it in Dante?—il fumo in aere ed in aqua la schiuma!'
Smoking a Cavour, Munden lay back in the shadow of the pergola, and seemed to disdain reply.
'Your advice?'
'What's the good of advising a man born to be fooled? Why, let the —— do her worst!'
Shergold winced.
'We mustn't forget that it's all my fault.'
'Yes, just as it's your own fault you didn't die on the day of your birth!'
'I must raise the offer—'