"Your brother?" repeated Mr. Brewer to Jenifer, who stood stiff and upright by his side.
"My half-brother, James O'Keefe."
"There is some one at the front door; will you open it?"
Jenifer guessed at the personage to be found there. But she went steadily through the front passage, and, opening the door, let the policeman who had been waiting enter, and then she came back to the kitchen without uttering a word. As the man entered Mr. Brewer laid his hand on the sleeper's shoulder, and woke him. He opened his fine grey eyes, and looked round surprised. "On suspicion of having committed an assault on Mr. Horace Erskine last night, in the park at Beremouth," said the policeman, and the stranger stood up a prisoner. He began to speak; but the policeman stopped him. "It is a serious case," he said. "It may turn out murder. You are warned that anything you say will be used against you at your trial." "Are you a magistrate, sir?" asked O'Keefe as he turned to Mr. Brewer. "Yea; I am. I hope you will take the man's advice, and say nothing."
"But I may say I am innocent?" "Every word you say is at your own risk." "I ran no risk in saying that I am innocent--that I never saw this Horace Erskine last night--though if I had seen him--"
"I entreat you to be silent; you must have a legal adviser"--"I! Who do I know?"' "You shall be well looked to, and well advised," said Jenifer. "There are those in this town, in the office where Lansdowne Lorimer worked, who will work for me."
It was very hard for Mr. Brewer not to promise on the spot that he would pay all possible expenses. But the recollection of the disfigured and perhaps dying guest in his own house rose to his mind, and he had a painful feeling that he was retained on the other side. However, he said to Jenifer that perfect truth and sober justice anybody might labor for in any way. And with this sort of broad hint he left the house, and Jenifer saw the stranger taken off in safe custody, and, mounting his horse, rode toward Blagden. He asked for his daughter; and he was instantly admitted, and shown upstairs into her sitting-room--there he found Claudia, looking well and happy, engaged in some busy work, in which Eleanor was helping her.
"Oh, my dear father!" and Lady Greystock threw the work aside, and jumped up, and into the arms that waited for her.
It was always a sort of high holiday when Mr. Brewer come by himself to visit his daughter. When the sound of the brown-topped boots was [{325}] heard on the stairs, like a voice of music to Claudia's heart, all human things gave way, for that gladness that her father's great heart brought and gave away, all round him, to everybody, everywhere--but there, there, where his daughter lived--there, among the friends with whom she had recovered from a great illness and got the better of a threatened, life-long woe--there Mr. Brewer felt some strong influence making him that, which people excellently expressed when they said of him--"he was more than ever himself that day."
Now Mr. Brewer's influence was to make those to whom he addressed himself honest, open, and good. He was loved and trusted. It did not generally enter into people's minds to deceive Mr. Brewer. Candor grew and gained strength in his presence. Candor took to herself the teachings of wisdom; candor listened to the advice of humility; candor threw aside all vain-glorious garments when Mr. Brewer called for her company, and candor put on, forthwith, the crown of truth. "My darling!" said Mr. Brewer, as he kissed Claudia; "my darling!"