“I think you must be mad,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Will you get me a hansom?” I repeated, in a quiet voice. He stared at me again; but the steady look in my eyes quelled him. He held up his umbrella to a hansom driver, and walked unwillingly across the platform with me. My father had long ago left us to our own devices.
“Shall I give you a lift, George?” I said. “I am going towards the City.”
“No, thank you,” he replied. “I at least am too honest to ride in a vehicle I cannot afford.”
“George,” I said, looking earnestly at him, “believe me, I am doing nothing rashly. I am upheld by a hope to-day—a hope which may turn out a mere chimera, but which is yet sufficiently real to induce me to take steps to see Mr Gray with as little delay as possible.”
“Who is Mr Gray?”
“Cousin Geoffrey Rutherford’s lawyer.”
“That crazed old man who died in the autumn?”
“Good-bye, George,” I said, springing into the hansom and waving my hand to him. I shouted Mr Gray’s address to the driver through the little window in the roof. George was so angry that he did not even vouchsafe to take off his hat to me as I drove away.
I arrived at Mr Gray’s in good time. He was within, and I was shown almost directly into his presence.