“Now for it,” thought Guest as Stratton sat back, looking pale still and thin from his illness; but he only went on smoking, apparently waiting for his friend to speak.
“And I don’t know what to say,” thought Guest.
He was relieved from his embarrassment at last by Stratton beginning to talk about one of the current topics of the day, and he left the chambers at last without there having been the slightest reference to the trial.
Guest found his way to Bourne Square the next afternoon, and was startled to find all the shutters closed and the blinds drawn in the upper rooms.
“Out of town” seemed written plainly all over the house, for that nothing serious was the matter was evident from a friendly chat going on at the area gate between two maids, who had dispensed with the hated headgear of slavery—caps—and were laughing with a rustic looking young milkman.
Guest took a cab and drove to Miss Jerrold’s, in Bayswater, to find that lady at home and ready to welcome him.
“Gone, my dear boy,” she said. “Gone to Rome first, and the best thing too. Ugh! I never liked that man, Percy Guest. He looked like silver, but I could feel that he was only electro-plate. Well, poor Myra had a terrible escape. It was, of course, her money, and he looked for some of mine.”
“But when are they coming back, Miss Jerrold?”
“Oh, not for a long time, I hope. It will be the best thing in the world for poor Myra, and I have been thinking that I shall go and join them soon. Not till they have all had time to calm down. There is nothing to mind till then.”
She said these last words so meaningly that Guest gave her an inquiring look, and the old lady smiled.