“I asked him point-blank,” continued Harroway, “Is the woman——? But before I could get any further, he turns upon me with one of his Paladin airs, and tells me he never suggested that a woman was involved.”
“That settles it,” said Gerard. “Either that or guilt.”
“Heaven knows,” sighed Harroway. “And that’s the man I had set my heart upon making the biggest criminal advocate of the day.”
“Oh, you must go and use all your influence over him, Gerard,” said Irene, anxiously.
“Do you think I have ever stopped him from doing a pig-headed action, all the years I have known him?”
“But he loves you above everybody. He must listen to you.”
“Why not yourself?” asked Gerard, in a curious tone that caused the solicitor to glance sharply at him. “We will both go, Gerard—together.”
“Not a bit of good,” said Harroway, rising to depart. “He sent many kind messages—says he’ll write at length. But won’t see you. Won’t see a soul but me. He’s as proud, in that cell, as Lucifer. But what the dickens he’s got to be proud about in getting himself into this ghastly mess is more than I can imagine.”
The solicitor gone, Irene turned to Gerard.
“Harroway thinks it will go ill with Hugh.”