"Start for the most inaccessible part of the globe you can think of at the very earliest opportunity, and stay there."
"Why should I do that?"
"Because if they can't find you, they can't put you in the witness-box, and, if I were acting for Miss Arnott, I would much rather, for her sake, that you kept out. Good-night, Mr Morice. I have to thank you for your generous hospitality."
When the solicitor was in his bedroom he said to himself.
"I'm glad I came. But what a tangle! Unless I err they'll have my lady under lock and key before the assizes begin; or, at anyrate, under police observation. And my host loves her. What a prospect? When a man, who is not a constitutional liar, does lie, he's apt to give his lie too artistic a finish; still, as an example of the lie cumulative and absolute, that lie of his was fair, very fair indeed."
Hugh Morice had his thoughts also.
"If she'd only let me know that she proposed to call in Ernest Gilbert I'd have stopped her somehow. There's no more dangerous man in England. Now it's too late. We shall have to face the music. If I am subpœnaed I'll go into the witness-box and swear I did it. She charged me with having done it. She shall go into the witness-box and give evidence against me. We'll dish Ernest Gilbert. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.' And she's my friend, since I love her. At anyrate, I'll be her friend, if the thing may be."
CHAPTER XXIV
[THE SOMNAMBULIST]
Miss Arnott was not happy. Money had not brought her anything worth having. In her case, fortune had been synonymous with misfortune. Young, rich "beyond the dreams of avarice," good-looking; all those papers which deal with what are ironically called "personal topics," held her up to public admiration as one of the persons in the world who were most to be envied. In plain truth she was one of the most miserable. In her penniless days she was not unhappier. Then her trouble was simple, now it was compound. Not the least of her disasters was the fact that health was failing. That robust habit of mind and body which had, so far, stood her in good stead, was being sapped by the continuous strain. Her imagination was assuming a morbid tinge. Her nights were sleepless, or dream-haunted, which was as bad. She was becoming obsessed by an unhealthy feeling that she lived in a tainted atmosphere. That all the air about her was impregnated with suspicion. That she was becoming the centre of doubting eyes, whispering tongues, furtively pointing fingers.