"You were under no obligation to do so."
"There wouldn't be so much to tell you now if I had," said the Sailor, with horror in his eyes. He then told his story at length, with detail and with difficulty, but concealing nothing.
Edward Ambrose was much affected. He somehow felt, as a generous mind was likely to feel in such a case, that it should have been his part to shield this lamb from the wolves. Yet he knew that blame did not lie at his door.
Still, he was deeply grieved. He accepted the story without question as it was told him. There could be no doubt that all the essential facts were exactly as they had been related. Harper, in his curious ignorance of the world, had fallen into a trap.
The young man ended the story with a pathetic appeal for advice. He made it clear that he could never go back to this woman; he dared not even venture to see her again lest he do her violence. He must get free of her at all costs. Could his friend tell him how such a thing must be managed?
"One feels it ought not to be very difficult in the circumstances," said Edward Ambrose, "if we go the right way to work. But the first thing is to consult a lawyer."
Accordingly, before he had finished a greatly interrupted meal, Ambrose went to the telephone and arranged to see his own solicitor as soon as that gentleman should arrive at his office in Spring Gardens. When he returned to the dining-room, he found Henry Harper striding up and down it. A sort of determined rage had taken possession of him. The hereditary forces that had so nearly overthrown him a few hours before had returned upon him.
"I'll never be so near murder as I was between twelve and one last night," he said, huskily, with a clenched and deadly look.
"She wouldn't have been worth it," said Edward Ambrose. He then turned abruptly from the subject. "You will want rooms, won't you—somewhere to go?" He had a fund of very practical kindness. "And you'll want clothes. And your papers and books. But I think we had better send one of Mortimer's clerks to collect those. As for rooms, perhaps Portman may know of some."
Upon due interrogation, Portman, it seemed, knew of some rooms that might be vacant. Thereupon he was sent on a diplomatic mission; the scale of charges must be strictly moderate. He must not show his nose, which prided itself on a resemblance to that of a certain very eminent statesman, in Bury Street again until his errand had been carried out successfully.