"And pray what's the matter with you?" snapped the doctor at him.
"Nothing—nothing at all!" said Scoffold, in a constrained tone. "I'll say good-night!" He turned towards the door, and I noticed that his head was bowed, and that he looked at the carpet as he moved.
Bardolph Just stepped suddenly in front of him. "Look here, you're not going like that?" he said. "I'll have some word from you about this affair before you leave my house."
Harvey Scoffold looked up quickly. "Then here's the word," he said aggressively. "I'm rather inclined to believe your friend here, and I don't like the business. It's a dirty business, and I've seen enough of it, and of you. Good-night!"
He thrust his way past the other man, and swaggered out of the room. I was so surprised and so relieved that I was in a mood to run after him, and hug him, in sheer joy at finding an honest man; but I refrained.
With the closing of the door the doctor stood for a moment, dazed; then he opened the door again, and ran out after the other. I pitied him for his weakness in doing that, because I felt absolutely certain in my own mind that he would not change Harvey Scoffold's opinion of him. I had hated Harvey Scoffold pretty cordially on my own account, and by reason of my misfortunes; now I began to see (as, alas! I had seen so often with other men, and all to my own undoing) that I had cruelly misjudged him. However, I had said all I wanted to say to the doctor, and I started off to my room.
Now, had I been of a suspicious nature, I must have been disturbed at the sight of the doctor and Harvey Scoffold engaged in earnest talk at the end of the corridor which led from the study; but as, the moment I appeared, Scoffold shook himself angrily free of the other's clutch, and burst out with a shout, I was more than ever convinced that the doctor had been pleading with him in vain.
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with you!" exclaimed Scoffold. "I wish I'd never come into the house. Not another word; I've done with you!"
I heard the great hall door bang, and I knew that Scoffold was gone; the doctor, retracing his steps, favoured me with a scowl as he went past, but said never a word; while I, greatly elated at having found a friend in this business, went off to my room, determined that in some vague fashion I would put matters right in the morning, and defy Bardolph Just to do his worst.
As ill luck would have it, I had forgotten one important point. In the eyes of Debora I had disgraced myself; she had every reason to believe me the drunken madman who had hurled bottles, and broken windows, and upset furniture the night before. I had forgotten that when I entered the breakfast-room in the morning, and found her standing by the window. I made my way eagerly to her. To my momentary surprise, she drew back, as though fearing contact with me.