“What could I say?” he asked irritably. “That I overheard two fellows, in the smoking-compartment of a railway train, saying that one Foliott was a scamp. Sir John would naturally ask me what grounds I had for assuming that it was their Foliott. Well, I have no grounds. And how small I should look!”
“There are slight grounds, at any rate, Tod. The name is his, Foliott; and both are going to be married.”
“All the same, I don’t see that I can speak.”
“Put it in this light, Tod,” I said. “You don’t speak; and they get married; and then something or other bad turns up about Foliott; and Sir John finds out that it was in your power to warn him in time, and you did not. What will he say then?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” grunted Tod. “I wish I could see on which side land lies.”
All the rest of the way to London we continued to discuss it by fits and starts, and at last hit upon a good thought—to tell the whole to William Whitney. It was the best thing to do, so far as we could see. It might all end in smoke, or—it might not.
The Whitneys had found a furnished house in Gloucester Place, near Portman Square. The maid who had taken the illness was soon well again, and the Hall was being regularly fumigated now, preparatory to their return. In Gloucester Place they were within a short drive of Miss Deveen’s, a fact which had guided them to the locality. Indeed, it was only a walk for the younger of us.
Not until night did we get any chance of a private talk with William. Our bedrooms opened into one another; and after we went up for good, he sat down in our room.
“You won’t be affronted, Bill, at something I am about to say?” struck in Tod, by way of prelude.
“Affronted!” cried Bill. “I! What on earth do you ask that stupid question for?”