And now the unhappy man was close at hand, his mind filled with wonder at the strange summons.
"To make me acquainted with his wife," he had whispered to himself a dozen times--nay! a hundred times, since receiving the message. "I! the exposed forger--the man driven out of the Navy for an ignoble crime--the crimp of to-day. And this in connection with something in my past, of which her husband knows as well as I! What does it mean?"
Yet, soon, he was himself to know. At once! The boat had reached the side of the ship, the man-ropes were in his hands; above stood Sir Geoffrey Barry, watching him coming on board, with, upon his face, a pleasant glance.
"My God!" Lewis Granger thought to himself, "he looks as once he might have looked at a comrade across the mess-cabin table; as he has never looked yet at me before. And--and--I am to be made acquainted with his wife!"
Geoffrey held out his hand to Granger when he reached the deck, noting as he did that the man had come as a gentleman to visit a lady. He was clad now in a quiet but good black costume; he was also clean-shaven and neat, which he had not been before. His wig was new and freshly powdered, and his lace was faultless. A different person this from the one who sat day by day in Jamaica Court, consigning drunkards and kidnapped men to their fate.
"Granger, I sent for you to tell you some news that has come to me. Through my wife, who has heard it from a lady--from----"
"Sophy!" the other whispered, divining all--or, perhaps it was not a whisper, his lips alone forming the word, though uttering no sound. While as they did so, he turned white as death.
"Yes. She has heard--her husband has heard--strange news. Nay, Granger, be steady," he said, breaking off as he saw the other put out his hand and touch a gun-carriage as though he feared to fall.
"What has--she--heard?" the latter asked a moment later, his voice almost inaudible.
"That--that--we who sat in judgment on you--that--that--all were wrong. I think it can be proved."