“Yes?” he said, “yes, Jean? What happened then?”
“Dr. Tasker happened,” she was smiling through her tears. “But for Dr. Tasker, we might have gone on as we were for a long, long time. Don’t think me unkind, for it wasn’t as if he had ever really cared, but I have often thanked God for Dr. Tasker!”
It was fortunate for her that Jean Bower had no clue to the look which came over Dr. Maclean’s face. He was seeing her in the witness-box, admitting her love for Harry Garlett, unconscious that by so doing she would provide for most members of the jury the strongest of all reasons for the crime for which Harry Garlett was on trial for his life.
“And now,” she asked, “may I go and telephone a telegram to Mr. Kentworthy, Uncle Jock?”
A few moments later his wife came into the room. “Jenny,” exclaimed the doctor, “almost has that child convinced me of Harry Garlett’s innocence!”
A hush, almost of death, over Bonnie Doon. A hush broken by a moment of almost intolerable disappointment, for the reply to the telegram sent to Mr. Kentworthy ran: “Am ill in bed. Will come as soon as possible. Doctor forbids journey for three days.”
Dr. Maclean felt this to be a bad setback, all the worse because somehow it was so entirely unexpected. And what he felt was experienced in a far, far stronger and more anguished degree by Jean Bower. She had pinned all her faith on James Kentworthy. She had felt that he would be the one tower of strength in a world where everything was falling into ruins about her. Her misery was much increased by the suspicion that her uncle was inclined to believe Harry Garlett guilty. She knew only too well the generous warmth he would have shown had he really believed her lover innocent.
At last she suggested timidly that they might go to Grendon and see Mr. Toogood. But to that suggestion he answered irritably, “After all, I can’t wholly neglect my patients.”
“Go out, do, and get that job over!” exclaimed Mrs. Maclean sharply. And he actually went out for his usual round, late in that long, inexpressibly dreary morning, glad that he, at any rate, had something to do, and so was not compelled to sit with his wife and Jean waiting they knew not for what.
At last he came in. They all sat down to their midday meal, and then Dr. Maclean suddenly lost his temper. Looking across the table he had seen Jean surreptitiously pushing the little piece of meat with which her aunt had served her under a salad leaf.