But much to the relief of Rupert Morrice and his niece, nothing came out at the trial which could in any way connect him with the robberies at Deanery Street. Morrice’s friends and acquaintances were, of course, very grieved at the reflected disgrace cast upon him by the fact that, through his wife, the financier and the criminal were some sort of distant connection.
CHAPTER XXX
RUPERT MORRICE MAKES AMENDS
It was a very subdued man who, shortly after breakfast, walked into Rosabelle’s sitting-room. It cannot be said that Morrice was in any sense of the words arrogant or overbearing, but his innate strength of mind and character gave him a certain feeling of superiority over ordinary men which reflected itself in his general bearing, the incisiveness of his utterances, the vigour of his gestures, as he talked. To-day, all these symptoms were absent.
He had passed a sleepless night, bitterly upbraiding himself with having committed a grave injustice, he of all men, who prided himself on being inflexibly just. His face was drawn and white, his heavy eyes showed the want of rest. He stood before the girl almost humble, filled with remorse and self-accusation.
“Rosabelle, I want you to do me an immediate favour.”
“Of course, dearest uncle.” The sympathetic girl’s heart went out to him in his misery. It was terrible to see this proud, strong man so abased in his own estimation, standing before her almost as a criminal might have stood before a judge. “You know what pleasure it will give me.”
“I want you to order the car at once, go straight to Richard, and do your best to make my peace with him. Tell him that I am following you in half an hour to entreat his forgiveness. If he will accord it to me,” he added in a broken voice, “I will devote my life to making amends.”
Rosabelle flung her arms round her uncle’s neck, her eyes full of happy tears. “Oh, gladly will I go on such an errand. And, of course, Dick will forgive. All along he has always admitted the terrible strength of the evidence against him, and told me that nobody but I would have believed in his innocence.”
“You believed in him because you loved him, child. I loved him, too, but the love of man lacks the divine quality that always animates that of a woman,” admitted the humbled man in a voice of deep sadness.
Well she knew as she drove along to the little cottage at Petersham where Richard Croxton had been eating his heart out for so many weary weeks, that the treachery of his wife had affected her husband less than his injustice towards the son of his old sweetheart.