'I take no interest in it, sir, whatever.'
'And the feelings of his widow,' said Mr Burton. 'Well, well, very well. Friendship is such a wide word—sometimes meaning so much, sometimes so little. I suppose I must do the best I can for poor Helen by myself, and in my own way.'
The obdurate doctor bowed. He held fast by his formula. He had not another word to say.
'In that case I need not trouble you any longer,' said Mr Burton. But when he was on his way to the door he paused and turned round. 'She is not likely to be reading the papers just now,' he said, 'and I hope I may depend on you not to let these unfortunate particulars, or anything about it, come to the ears of Mrs Drummond. I should like her to be saved that if possible. She will have enough to bear.'
'I shall not tell Mrs Drummond,' said the doctor. And then the door opened and closed, and the visitor was gone.
The brougham stood before Dr Maurice's window for a long time that morning. The old coachman grumbled, broiling on the box; the horses grumbled, pawing with restless feet, and switching the flies off with more and more impatient swingings of their tails. John grumbled indoors, who could not 'set things straight' until his master was out of the way. But the doctor neglected them all. Not one of all the four, horses or men, would have changed places with him could they have seen him poring over the newspaper, which he had not cared to look at that morning, with the wrinkles drawn together on his forehead. There was fury in his soul, that indignation beyond words, beyond self-command, with which a man perceives the rise and growth of a wrong which is beyond his setting right—a lie which he can only ineffectively contradict, struggle, or rage against, but cannot drive out of the minds of men. They had it in their own hands to say what they would. Dr Maurice knew that during all the past winter his friend had been drawn into the work of the bank. He had even cautioned Robert, though in ignorance of the extent of his danger. He had said, 'Don't forget that you are unaccustomed to the excitements of business. They will hurt you, though they don't touch the others. It is not your trade.' These words came back to his mind with the bitterest sense of that absence of foresight which is common to man. 'If I had but known!' he said. And then he remembered, with a bitter smile, his visit to Dr Bradcliffe, his request to him to see poor Drummond 'accidentally,' his dread for his friend's brain. This it was which had affected poor Robert, worse than disease, worse than madness; for in madness or disease there would have been no human agency to blame.
The papers, as Burton had said, were full of this exciting story. Outside in the very streets there were great placards up with headings in immense capitals, 'Great Bankruptcy in the City.—Suicide of a Bank Director.' The absconding of the manager, which had been the news the day before, was thrown into the background by this new fact, which was so much more tragical and important. 'The latest information' was given by some in a Second Edition, so widespread was the commotion produced by the catastrophe; and even those of the public who did not care much for Rivers's, cared for the exciting tale, or for the fate of the unhappy professional man who had rashly involved himself in business, and ruined not only himself, but so many more. The story was so dramatically complete that public opinion decided upon it at once. It did not even want the grieved, indignant letter which Mr Golden, injured man, wrote to the Times, begging that the report against him should be contradicted. This letter was printed in large type, and its tone was admirable. 'I will not prejudge any man, more especially one whose premature end has thrown a cloud of horror over the unfortunate business transactions of the bank with which I have had the honour of being connected for fifteen years,' Mr Golden wrote, 'but I cannot permit my temporary, innocent, and much-regretted absence to be construed into an evidence that I had deserted my post. With the help of Providence, I will never desert it, so long as I can entertain the hope of saving from the wreck a shilling of the shareholders' money.' It was a very good letter, very creditable to Mr Golden; and everybody had read it, and accepted it as gospel, before Dr Maurice got his hand upon it. In the Daily Semaphore, which the doctor did not see, there was already an article on the subject, very eloquent and slightly discursive, insisting strongly upon the wickedness and folly of men who without capital, or even knowledge of business, thus ventured to play with the very existence of thousands of people. 'Could the unfortunate man who has hidden his shame in a watery grave look up this morning from that turbid bed and see the many homes which he has filled with desolation, who can doubt that the worst and deepest hell fabled by the great Italian poet would lose something of its intensity in comparison?—the ineffectual fires would pale; a deeper and a more terrible doom would be that of looking on at all the misery—all the ruined households and broken hearts which cry out to-day over all England for justice on their destroyer.' Fortunately Dr Maurice did not read this article; but he did read the Times and its editorial comments. 'There can be little doubt,' that journal said, 'that the accidental absence of Mr Golden, the manager, whose letter explaining all the circumstances will be found in another column, determined Drummond to his final movement. It left him time to secure the falsified books, and remove all evidence of his guilt. It is not for us to explain by what caprice of despair, after taking all this trouble, the unhappy man should have been driven to self-destruction. The workings of a mind in such an unnatural condition are too mysterious to be discussed here. Perhaps he felt that when all was done, death was the only complete exemption from those penalties which follow the evil-doer on this earth. We can only record the fact; we cannot explain the cause. The manager and the remaining directors, hastily summoned to meet the emergency, have been labouring ever since, we understand, with the help of a well-known accountant, to make up the accounts of the company, as well as that can be done in the absence of the books which there is every reason to suppose were abstracted by Drummond before he left the office. It has been suggested that the river should be dragged for them as well as for the body of the unhappy man, which up to this time has not been recovered. But we doubt much whether, even should such a work be successful, the books would be legible after an immersion even of two or three days. We believe that no one, even the persons most concerned, are yet able to form an estimate of the number of persons to whom this lamentable occurrence will be ruin.'
Dr Maurice put down the paper with a gleam in his face of that awful and heart-rending rage which indignation is apt to rise into when it feels itself most impotent. What could he do to stop such a slander? He could contradict it; he could say, 'I know Robert Drummond; he was utterly incapable of this baseness.' Alas! who was he that the world should take his word for it? He might bring a counter-charge against Golden; he might accuse him of abstracting the books, and being the author of all the mischief; but what proof had he to substantiate his accusation? He had no evidence—not a hair's-breadth. He could not prove, though he believed, that this was all a scheme suggested to the plotters, if there were more than one, or to Golden himself, if he were alone in his villany, by the unlooked-for chance of Drummond's suicide. This was what he believed. All the more for the horrible vraisemblance of the story, could he see the steps by which it had been put together. Golden had absconded, taking with him everything that was damning in the way of books. He had lain hidden somewhere near at hand waiting an opportunity to get away. He had heard of poor Drummond's death, and an opportunity of a different kind, a devilish yet brilliantly successful way of escape, had suddenly appeared for him. All this burst upon Dr Maurice as by a revelation while he sat with those papers before him gnawing his nails and clutching the leading journal as if it had been Golden's throat. He saw it all. It came out before him like a design in phosphorus, twinkling and glowing through the darkness. He was sure of it; but—what to do?
This man had a touch in him of the antique friendship—the bond for which men have encountered all odds and dared death, and been happy in their sacrifice. But even disinterestedness, even devotion, do not give a man the mental power to meet such foes, or to frame a plan by which to bring them to confusion. He grew himself confused with the thought. He could not make out what to do first—how he should begin. He had forgotten how the hours went—what time of the day it was—while he pondered these subjects. The fire in his veins, instead of acting as a simple stimulant, acted upon him like intoxication. His brain reeled under the pressure. 'Will you have lunch, sir, before you go out?' said John, with restrained wrath, but a pretence of stateliness. 'Lunch!—how dare you come into my room, sir, before I ring!' cried his master, waking up and looking at him with what seemed to John murderous eyes. And then he sprang up, tore the papers into little pieces, crammed them into the fireplace, and, seizing his hat, rushed out to the carriage. The coachman was nodding softly on the box. The heat, and the stillness, and the monotony had triumphed even over the propriety of a man who knew all London, he was fond of saying, as well as he knew his own hands. The coachman almost dropped from his box when Maurice, throwing the door of the little carriage open, startled him suddenly from his slumber. The horses, which were half asleep too, woke also with much jarring of harness and prancing of hoof and head.
'To the Times office,' was what the doctor said. He could not go and clutch that villain by the throat, though that might be the best way. It was another kind of lion which he was about to beard in his den.