"That is my duty, sir. There are grave charges against you, which I for one shall be glad if you can disprove, for I've heard of lots of good you've done. Mr. Scales was arrested two days ago. I take it you'll come quietly."
"Scales arrested? For what, pray?"
"The charge is fraud. I am not at liberty to say more."
"Ah! And so——" But speech failed him. He appeared to be losing his grip upon reality as he had done on that Sunday evening when he saw The Fear.... There was a sound of organ music, rolling in soft surges, faint, solemn, sad—"Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day."
And a figure with dark wings that trailed the dust, and hooded head, very silent. The hood slowly lifted, and he saw the face at last—a face with a quiet smile, authoritative, inscrutable, indefinitely hostile. He had seen it at Charing Cross; it had followed him through the streets of Paris; he saw it now, a kind of white patch on the darkness, the hard whiteness of flame which nothing could quench.
Then the phantasm faded out, as it had done before. The horrible truth went crashing through his brain. He knew now why his letter had not been answered.... So they had heard things ... and never, never now would he be Sir Archibold Masterman. They had heard things ... and, while he waited for honour, they were plotting his dishonour. God! how they must have laughed! It was the supreme irony.
A wave of bitter laughter began to rise in his own heart; but something warned him, if he laughed just then, he would go mad.
He clutched at his leaping nerves as a man might clutch the reins of a runaway horse. All at once he attained complete sad composure. He was walking on a bleak high tableland among the stars, from which he looked down, and saw the world and all that was therein as a very little thing. Honour, dishonour, wealth, poverty—all were alike trifles, the blowing up and down of a little dust.... "As a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found."
He was quite calm now. He turned toward the man, who still stood with his inscrutable quiet smile, unavoidable as destiny, watching him narrowly.
"I will go with you," he said. "I give you my word, I will go quietly."