The only thing which at all mollified her was Amy’s suggestion that perhaps poor Dibble had been tempted to do wrong because he loved his wife so dearly; though Mrs. Dibble insisted that it was not love she valued so highly as honour and virtue and prudence, however much she had certainly been attached to Thomas in the early days of their courtship.
Things were assuming, it will be seen, rather a ridiculous aspect when Mr. Williamson arrived, with his grave, amiable face, to put affairs upon a proper footing. He mastered Dibble’s confession immediately, and rubbed his hands over it and smiled.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “we must change places to-day, Paul; we must put you in the witness-box, and Gibbs in the dock: that will be a good joke, eh? It’s really a capital case—as nice a bit of conspiracy as could well be imagined. I thought yours was an honest face, young man,” he continued, addressing Paul, “as soon as you appeared.”
Paul blushed, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Williamson.”
The journalist and barrister then made a quiet effort to learn from Paul his reasons for taking such an interest in the doings of Mr. Gibbs at the Ashford Club.
Paul hesitated and looked at his sister, who immediately came to his assistance.
“I induced Paul to make inquiries,” she said.
Her father and the rest looking for some further observation, she said,
“Paul heard some strange things, concerning Mr. Tallant’s son, and—and Mr. Hammerton, who resided near us. I was anxious, if possible, to learn the truth of the rumours, which were to their discredit. In truth, it seemed as though the good name and reputation of Mr. Hammerton were likely to be lost to him, as if he were being gradually led into the society of disreputable people and deceived, and——”
Amy was very much at fault in her attempted explanation; she felt that she hardly knew why she had interfered, now that she endeavoured to justify it. Curiosity, excited by Paul’s letters, had been her first impulse, and then her romantic love for Hammerton had shown her the danger into which he was drifting. Her hero a gambler, the man whom she held up in her imagination as the best and the truest and purest and noblest, an associate of gamblers and speculators and drunkards; the idea had tortured her to an extent quite sufficient to add eloquent point to her inquiries concerning Hammerton and Tallant, which had at first puzzled Paul, and then enlisted him in her service as Mr. Hammerton’s good angel.