"You are an old fool with a young wife. She loves your money, not you; she despises you because you are a City man; and she loves Mr. Colquhoun."
He sat alone in his study after dinner, reading these wretched things, in misery of soul. And a thought came across him.
"I will go and see Colquhoun," he said. "I will talk to him, and ask him what is this secret."
It was about ten o'clock. He put on his hat and took a cab to Colquhoun's chambers.
On that day Lawrence Colquhoun was ill at ease. It was borne in upon him with especial force—probably because it was one of the sultry and thunderous days when Conscience has it all her own disagreeable way—that he was and had been an enormous Ass. By some accident he was acquainted with the fact that he had given rise to talk by his frequent visits to Victoria Cassilis.
"And to think," he said to himself, "that I only went there at her own special request, and because she likes quarrelling!"
He began to think of possible dangers, not to himself, but to her and to her husband, even old stories revived and things forgotten and brought to light. And the thing which she had done came before him in its real shape and ghastliness—a bad and ugly thing; a thing for whose sake he should have fled from her presence and avoided her; a thing which he was guilty in hiding. No possible danger to himself? Well, in some sense none; in every other sense all dangers. He had known of this thing, and yet he sat at her table; he was conscious of the crime, and yet he was seen with her in public places; he was almost particeps criminis, because he did not tell what he knew; and yet he went day after day to her house—for the pleasure of quarrelling with her.
He sat down and wrote to her. He told her that perhaps she did not wholly understand him when he told her that the renewed acquaintance between them must cease; that, considering the past and with an eye to the future, he was going to put it out of her power to compromise herself by seeing her no more. He reminded her that she had a great secret to keep unknown, and a great position to lose; and then he begged her to give up her wild attempts at renewing the old ties of friendship.
The letter, considering what the secret really was, seemed a wretched mockery to the writer, but he signed it and sent it by his servant.
Then he strolled to his club, and read the papers before dinner. But he was not easy. There was upon him the weight of impending misfortune. He dined, and tried to drown care in claret, but with poor success, Then he issued forth—it was nine o'clock and still light—and walked gently homewards.