“Even these must fulfil their destiny, beloved one,” said the white-haired man.
XXXIII
Pale with conflict William Jordan took himself yet again to No. 24 Trafalgar Square on the following day. He still carried in his pockets the twenty pieces of gold. His guilt was written in his mien, yet the little world about him could not read.
“Mr. Jordan,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw with great kindness, “it has seemed to me lately that all is not well with you. You have not been looking yourself. I would like to suggest that you take a fortnight’s rest; I think I can answer for it that the firm will raise no objection. I would like to suggest that you run down to Margate to take a breath of the sea.”
“You are k-kind, sir,” said the young man, with the simplicity that the good Mr. Walkinshaw had long come to recognize as part of him, “but my m-malady is of another nature.”
Mr. Walkinshaw shook his head solemnly, and subsequently observed to Mr. Aristophanes Luff, “That young man is suffering. He ought to seek medical advice.”
“One can imagine that Hamlet looked like that,” mildly observed Mr. Aristophanes Luff.
As William Jordan sat on his high stool in the left-hand corner, he saw through the glass partition that divided the counting-house from the exit into Trafalgar Square, Jimmy Dodson pass out of the door into the street. At the moment this apparently unrelated circumstance addressed his mind with no especial significance. But soon it began to produce a kind of vibration in it, as though it were charged with a meaning that his faculties had not the power to seize. Quite suddenly, however, the young man discarded the paper and string he was manipulating and came down from his high stool.
“Oh, yes,” he muttered to himself softly, “I understand now, I understand now.”
Again his limbs, in their weariness, mounted those well-remembered stairs. He passed the ante-chamber wherein his evil genius was wont to reside, but who, at this moment, all unconscious, was taking his way across the square. He tapped softly upon the door of the head of the firm. He entered silently, but without vacillation.