"But the young lady is well rid of him," he went on. "If in the darkest hours of her life he thus abandons her, what he miscalled his love is not a thing either to covet or regret."
"But consider," urged Drelincourt, "what the world would have said! Think of the shock to his friends!"
"In his place I should have thought only of her I loved. If the world and my friends chose to disapprove, they would have been welcome to do so. Oh, Mr. Drelincourt, what a miserable hound this fellow must be! Not to one man in a thousand in these days is the chance afforded of proving what stuff he's really made of. In King Arthur's time men had to win their wives after a fashion which revealed the coward and the cad in their true colors. What a pity that some such test is not enforced nowadays!"
Drelincourt smiled as he rose and pushed away his chair. "In that case, I'm afraid the number of compulsory bachelors would soon mount up to an alarming figure."
Walter also rose and went and stood by one of the windows. He wore a preoccupied air, as of one debating some question with himself.
Drelincourt's lips moved inaudibly.
"As I told Winslow, I had my reasons for affording Marian and this young fellow an opportunity of falling in love with each other. I do not think--no, I do not think that I am mistaken in him!"
Next moment a shadow darkened his face. Again he glanced at his watch. "The trial ought to be over by now. I thought I heard the sound of galloping hoofs." For a few seconds he stood in a listening attitude. "The sound was in my own brain only. So does expectation play the cheat with itself!"
Presently Deane turned from the window and went up to Drelincourt, who was standing at the center table, examining an etching through a magnifying glass. His face was pale, but his lips were firmly set, and his eyes shone with resolution.
"Mr. Drelincourt," he began, in a voice which had lost something of its customary assurance, "after what has just passed between us, I think it due to you to inform you that I am the son of a man who committed suicide! Probably you will think that such a circumstance ought to have been brought to your knowledge long ago; and, indeed, I feel now that it was both cowardly and wrong on my part to keep it from you. The only excuse I can offer is that my father's memory is so dear to me that--that----"