“Don’t speak of him again in my presence!” he burst out. “That man has insulted me. When I took refuge from political persecution in this country, I sent him my prospectus. From my own humble position as a teacher of languages, I looked up without envy to his celebrity among doctors; I thought I might remind him, not unfavourably, of our early friendship—I, who had done him a hundred kindnesses in those past days. He has never taken the slightest notice of me; he has not even acknowledged the receipt of my prospectus. Despicable wretch! Let me hear no more of him.”
“Pray forgive me if I refer to him again—for the last time,” Mr. Mool pleaded. “Did your acquaintance with him continue, after the question of the wager had been settled?”
“No, sir!” Baccani answered sternly. “When I was at leisure to go to the club at which we were accustomed to meet, he had left Rome. From that time to this—I rejoice to say it—I have never set eyes on him.”
The obstacles which had prevented the refutation of the calumny from reaching Benjulia were now revealed. Mr. Mool had only to hear, next, how that refutation had been obtained. A polite hint sufficed to remind Baccani of the explanation that he had promised.
“I am naturally suspicious,” he began abruptly; “and I doubted the woman when I found that she kept her veil down. Besides, it was not in my way of thinking to believe that an estimable married lady could have compromised herself with a scoundrel, who had boasted that she was his mistress. I waited in the street, until the woman came out. I followed her, and saw her meet a man. The two went together to a theatre. I took my place near them. She lifted her veil as a matter of course. My suspicion of foul play was instantly confirmed. When the performance was over, I traced her back to Mr. Robert Graywell’s house. He and his wife were both absent at a party. I was too indignant to wait till they came back. Under the threat of charging the wretch with stealing her mistress’s clothes, I extorted from her the signed confession which you have in your hand. She was under notice to leave her place for insolent behaviour. The personation which had been intended to deceive me, was an act of revenge; planned between herself and the blackguard who had employed her to make his lie look like truth. A more shameless creature I never met with. She said to me, ‘I am as tall as my mistress, and a better figure; and I’ve often worn her fine clothes on holiday occasions.’ In your country Mr. Mool, such women—so I am told—are ducked in a pond. There is one thing more to add, before you read the confession. Mrs. Robert Graywell did imprudently send the man some money—in answer to a begging letter artfully enough written to excite her pity. A second application was refused by her husband. What followed on that, you know already.”
Having read the confession, Mr. Mool was permitted to take a copy, and to make any use of it which he might think desirable. His one remaining anxiety was to hear what had become of the person who had planned the deception. “Surely,” he said, “that villain has not escaped punishment?”
Baccani answered this in his own bitter way.
“My dear sir, how can you ask such a simple question? That sort of man always escapes punishment. In the last extreme of poverty his luck provides him with somebody to cheat. Common respect for Mrs. Robert Graywell closed my lips; and I was the only person acquainted with the circumstances. I wrote to our club declaring the fellow to be a cheat—and leaving it to be inferred that he cheated at cards. He knew better than to insist on my explaining myself—he resigned, and disappeared. I dare say he is living still—living in clover on some unfortunate woman. The beautiful and the good die untimely deaths. He, and his kind, last and live.”
Mr. Mool had neither time nor inclination to plead in favour of the more hopeful view, which believes in the agreeable fiction called “Poetical justice.” He tried to express his sense of obligation at parting. Baccani refused to listen.
“The obligation is all on my side,” he said. “As I have already told you, your visit has added a bright day to my calendar. In our pilgrimage, my friend, through this world of rogues and fools, we may never meet again. Let us remember gratefully that we have met. Farewell.”