'You do not deny that you came to Sanstead House for the deliberate purpose of kidnapping Ogden Ford?'
I had nothing to say. I caught a glimpse of Audrey's face, cold and hard, and shifted my eyes quickly. Mr Abney gulped. His face wore the reproachful expression of a cod-fish when jerked out of the water on the end of a line. He stared at me with pained repulsion. That scoundrelly old buccaneer Sam did the same. He looked like a shocked bishop.
'I—ah—trusted you implicitly,' said Mr Abney.
Sam wagged his head at me reproachfully. With a flicker of spirit
I glared at him. He only wagged the more.
It was, I think, the blackest moment of my life. A wild desire for escape on any terms surged over me. That look on Audrey's face was biting into my brain like an acid.
'I will go and pack,' I said.
'This is the end of all things,' I said to myself.
I had suspended my packing in order to sit on my bed and brood. I was utterly depressed. There are crises in a man's life when Reason fails to bring the slightest consolation. In vain I tried to tell myself that what had happened was, in essence, precisely what, twenty-four hours ago, I was so eager to bring about. It amounted to this, that now, at last, Audrey had definitely gone out of my life. From now on I could have no relations with her of any sort. Was not this exactly what, twenty-four hours ago, I had wished? Twenty-four hours ago had I not said to myself that I would go away and never see her again? Undoubtedly. Nevertheless, I sat there and groaned in spirit.
It was the end of all things.
A mild voice interrupted my meditations.