The detective got up slowly, whistled in a significant manner, and left the room.
"Now, if Jim Hardy is quixotic enough to marry Louisa Clay after what I have said, I'll never speak to a good man again as long as I live," he muttered.
But Jim Hardy had not made up his mind how to act at all; he was simply stunned. When he found himself alone he sank down on a chair close to his little center table, put his elbows on the table, and buried his head in his big hands. The whole bewildering truth was too much for him. He was honest and straight himself, and could not understand duplicity. Louisa's conduct was incomprehensible to him. What should he do now? Should he be true to one so false? This question began dimly to struggle to obtain an answer in his mind. He had scarcely begun to face it, when a knock at the door, and the shrill voice of his landlady calling out, "I have got a letter for you, Mr. Hardy, you are in favor with the post to-night," reached him.
He walked across the room, opened the door, and took the letter from the landlady's hand. She gave him a quick, curious glance; she saw shrewdly enough that something was worrying him.
"Why do he go and marry a girl like that Clay creature?" she muttered to herself as she whisked downstairs. "I wouldn't have her if she had double the money they say he's to get with her."
Jim meanwhile stared hard at the writing on his letter. It was in Louisa Clay's straggling, badly formed hand. He hastily tore open the envelope, and read the brief contents. They ran as follows:
"DEAR JIM,—I dare say you have heard something about me, and I don't go for to deny that that something is true. I was mad when I did it, but, mad or sane, it is best now that all should be over between you and me. I couldn't bear to marry you, and you knowing the truth. Then you never loved me—any fool could see that. So I am off out of London, and you needn't expect to see me any more.
"Yours no longer,
"LOUISA CLAY."
Jim's first impulse when he had read this extraordinary and unexpected letter was to dance a hornpipe from one end of the room to the other; his next was to cry hip, hip, hurrah in a stentorian voice. His last impulse he acted upon. He caught up his hat and went out as fast as ever he could. With rapid strides he hurried through the crowded streets, reached the Bank, and presently found himself on the top of an omnibus which was to convey him to Bayswater. He was following his impulse with a beating heart, eyes that blazed with light, and lips that trembled with emotion. He had been a prisoner tied fast in chains of his own forging. All of a sudden he was free. Impulse should have its way. His heart should dictate to him in very earnest at last. With Louisa's letter and his uncle's letter in his pocket, he presently reached the great house where Mrs. Faulkner lived. He had often passed that house since Alison had gone to it, walking hungrily past it at dead of night, thinking of the girl whom he loved but might never win; now he might win his true love after all—he meant to try. His triumphant steps were heard hurrying down the pavement. He pulled the servants' bell and asked boldly for Alison.
"Who shall I say?" asked the kitchen-maid who admitted him.