Still the game might not be lost. I yet had time. I might, at any rate, make my hay and enjoy it while the sun was shining. To-morrow--whose to-morrow it was, or what weather it might bring, no man could tell. I would live out to-day.
I looked at the newspaper. It was as Archie had said; how funny that he should be touched by Dora! They had found the body--but that was nothing, if that was all--and it was all. I had not supposed for a moment that the body could stay hidden. It had all happened just as I expected. A platelayer, walking along the line, had seen something lying among the bushes--Louise. There was some sensational rubbish to catch the pennies of the mob, but the whole thing merely amounted to this, that Louise was found.
Queer stick, old Jardine! Fancy his having taken to me, after all! He was a keen judge of character; I have seldom met a keener, and, as he said, there was that in me which differentiates strength from weakness. I had known, I had felt it, all along. I have, to begin with, the courage of the devil. Give me something of a chance, and my foot in the bottom niche, it should not be my fault if I did not reach the top of the pillar of fame.
The mischief was, my affairs were in a muddle. It was not money so much; I could manage for that, and, if things went as they ought to go, not impossibly Jardine would stand by me there. I had a shrewd suspicion, from the remarks which he had dropped, that he knew as much about my pecuniary position as he cared to know. It was other things, and one of those things was Lily Langdale. It is extraordinary how I always have managed to get myself mixed up with women. The teachings of my experience I should sum up in something like a bull--the best thing that can happen to a man is for him to be born sexless.
While I was dressing Burton imparted a piece of information which brought me to a rapid resolution.
"Mrs. Langdale was here after you went out, sir. Made rather a noise. Talked about stopping for your return."
"Did she?" That settled it.
I went straight off to Miss Lily. I was plain with her. She did not like it--she was equally plain with me. What home truths one does get from women! A woman in a temper is ten thousand times more candid than a man. But she had sense enough to understand that she could scarcely expect to score, on those lines, off me. I explained that what would be done for her depended upon how she behaved herself, but I did not explain that it depended much more upon Sir Haselton Jardine.
Lily's place was in the Hammersmith Road. As I was leaving it, something like calm having followed the storm--never, if you can help it, leave a woman in a rage, it is cruel--whom should I encounter but Mrs. Daniel J. Carruth, my acquaintance of the train. Very nice she looked, with a natty little toque on her clever head, and a fluffy fur thing round her throat. I have seen many uglier women ten years younger--yes, and as far as appearances went, further gone in the sere and yellow.
She came sailing up when she saw me.