Mr Rimbolt diplomatically promised to give the matter his consideration, and consult authorities on the subject when next in London, and meanwhile was not unsparing in his compliments to the inventor and his coadjutor.
So the time passed happily enough for Jeffreys, until about three weeks after the Scarfes’ departure, when the following amiable letter reached him with the Oxford post-mark on the envelope:—
Christ Church, February 20th.
“Jeffreys,—You may have supposed that because I left Wildtree without showing you up in your proper character as a murderer and a hypocrite, that I have changed my opinions as to what is my duty to Mr Rimbolt and his family in this matter. It is not necessary for me to explain to you why I did not do it at once, especially after the blackguardly manner in which you acted on the last evening of my stay there. You being Mr Rimbolt’s servant, I had to consider his convenience. I now write to say that you can spare me the unpleasant duty of informing the Wildtree household of what a miscreant they have in their midst by doing it yourself. If, after they know all, they choose to keep you on, there is nothing more to be said. You are welcome to the chance you will have of lying in order to whitewash yourself, but either I or you must tell what we know. Meanwhile I envy you the feelings with which I dare say you read of the death of poor young Forrester’s father in Afghanistan. How your cowardly crime must have brightened his last hours!
“Yours,—
“E. Scarfe.”
Jeffreys pitched this elegant specimen of polite Billingsgate contemptuously into the grate. He was not much a man of the world, but he could read through the lines of a poor performance like this.
Scarfe, for some reason or other, did not like to tell the Rimbolts himself, but he was most anxious they should know, and desired Jeffreys to do the dirty work himself. There was something almost amusing in the artlessness of the suggestion, and had the subject been less personally grievous, Jeffreys could have afforded to scoff at the whole business.
He sat down on the impulse of the moment and dashed off the following reply:—
“Dear Scarfe,—Would it not be a pity that your sense of duty should not have the satisfaction of doing its own work, instead of begging me to do it for you? I may be all you say, but I am not mean enough to rob you of so priceless a jewel as the good conscience of a man who has done his duty. So I respectfully decline your invitation, and am,—