“I don’t remember yer, guv’nor,” he said, and Jimmy flinched at the appalling accent. “I’ve kind o’ lost my memory, yer see, and Lizzie ’ere looks after me.”
“I know she does,” continued Jimmy quietly. “Thank you, Lizzie, thank you a thousand times. But I want you both to come to this house to-night.” He scribbled the address of his rooms on a slip of paper. “We must think what is best to be done. You see, Lizzie, it’s not quite fair to him, is it? I want to get a good doctor to see him.”
“I’m quite ’appy as I am, sir,” said Peter. “I don’t want no doctors messing about with me.”
“Yer’d better go, Bill.” The girl turned to him. “The gentleman seems kind. But”—she swung round on Jimmy fiercely—“you ain’t going to take ’im away from me, guv’nor? ’E’s mine, yer see—mine——”
“I want you to come with him to-night, Lizzie,” said Lethbridge gravely. “I’m not going to try and take him away from you. I promise that. But will you promise to come? It’s for his sake I ask you to bring him.”
For a while she looked at him half fearfully; then she glanced at Peter, who had apparently lost interest in the matter. And at last she muttered under her breath: “Orl right—I’ll bring him. But ’e’s mine—mine. An’ don’t yer go forgetting it.”
And Jimmy, walking slowly into the main street, carried with him the remembrance of a small determined face with the look on it of a mother fighting for her young. That and Peter; poor dazed memory-lost Peter—his greatest pal.
At first, as he turned towards Piccadilly, he grasped nothing save the one stupendous fact that Peter was not dead. Then, as he walked on, gradually the realisation of what it meant to him personally came to his mind. And with that realisation there returned with redoubled force the insidious tempting voice that had first whispered: “Molly will never know.” She would never know—could never know—unless he told her. And Peter was happy; he’d said so. And the girl was happy—Lizzie. And perhaps—in fact most likely—Peter would never recover his memory. So what was the use? Why say anything about it? Why not say it was a mistake when they came that evening? And Jimmy put his hand to his forehead and found it was wet with sweat.
After all, if Peter didn’t recover, it would only mean fearful unhappiness for everyone. He wouldn’t know Molly, and it would break her heart, and the girl’s, and—but, of course, he didn’t count. It was the others he was thinking of—not himself.
He turned into the Park opposite the Albert Hall, and passers-by eyed him strangely, though he was supremely unaware of the fact. But when all the demons of hell are fighting inside a man, his face is apt to look grey and haggard. And as he walked slowly towards Hyde Park Corner, Jimmy Lethbridge went through his Gethsemane. They thronged him; pressing in on him from all sides, and he cursed the devils out loud. But still they came back, again and again, and the worst and most devilish of them all was the insidious temptation that by keeping silent he would be doing the greatest good for the greatest number. Everyone was happy now—why run the risk of altering things?