“My name is not known, Mrs. Harrison,” he said, with his fibres stiffening, and his voice growing deeper and falling under control, “but you can trust me to eke out my inexperience with a determination to serve you to the utmost of my power.”
Northcote saw that two luminous orbs were being defined slowly in the centre of the gloom. For an instant no reply was made to his words, and then he was conscious that a faint voice was whispering, “If your friend would go right away with the warder—right away to the end of the room, then perhaps we could speak with one another here where it is so dark.”
“Whitcomb,” said Northcote, in a low tone, “please take the warder right up to the window at the other end, where you can see to read, and read the Law Journal to her.”
“How d’ye do, ma’am,” said the solicitor, turning to the ghoul in his promptest, blandest, and most musical manner. “I think it has been my privilege to meet you before, although you may not remember me. Is that boy of yours prospering in the police force?”
“I haven’t got a boy in the police force,” said the sibyl, in a loud, strident tone.
“Then which of your blood relations is it, may I ask, who is connected with the police force? I am sure you have some one.”
“I have an uncle.”
“Ah, to be sure, an uncle! But it is so easy to make a mistake on a point of official nepotism. Come along this way, ma’am, and tell me all about your uncle.”
XX
THE INTERVIEW
Prisoner and advocate were left together amid recesses of impenetrable gloom in the darkest corner of the large apartment. It seemed to enfold them, and to render the pallor of their faces almost invisible. The eyes alone encountered those of each other, and even these could embody no phase of meaning. A strange continence, as sharp and clean as that of a hero of fable, had begun to cleanse the veins of the advocate. In the presence of this stealthy thing his nature had never seemed so fine, so valiant, so full of subtle penetration; nor had it ever felt so girt with mastery, so completely enamored of its own security.