'This business worries me,' he said. 'Day and night it is with me. I am persecuted and haunted with this Edmund Gray. His tracts are put into my pockets; his papers into my safe: he laughs at me: he defies me to find him. And they do nothing. They only accuse each other. They find nothing.'
'Patience,' said Elsie softly. 'Only a few days—a day or two—then—with your help—we will unravel all this trouble. You shall lose nothing.'
'Shall I escape this mocking devil—this Edmund Gray?'
'I cannot promise. Perhaps.—Now, my dear guardian, I am to be married next Wednesday. I want you to be present at my wedding.'
'Why not?'
'Because things have been said about George: and because your presence will effectually prove that you do not believe them.'
'Oh! Believe them? I believe nothing. It is, however, my experience that there is no act, however base, that any man may not be tempted to do.'
'Happily, it is my experience,' said the girl of twenty-one, 'that there is no act of baseness, however small, that certain men could possibly commit. You will come to my wedding, then. Athelstan will give me away.'
'Athelstan? Yes; I remember. We found those notes, didn't we? I wonder who put them into the safe? Athelstan! Yes. He has been living in low company, I heard—Camberwell.—Rags and tatters.'
'Oh!' Elsie stamped impatiently. 'You will believe anything—anything, and you a lawyer! Athelstan is in the service of a great American journal.—Rags and tatters!'