"Well, I don't know," was the other's reply; "yet I feel that, in view of this contretemps, I must in future break off all connection with you."
"And lose the annual grant which you find so extremely useful?"
"I shall be compelled to do without it. And, at least, I shall have peace of mind."
"Perhaps," remarked the other meaningly.
Sir Hugh realised that this man intended still to hold him in the hollow of his hand. From that one false step he had taken years ago he had never been able to draw back.
Hour by hour, and day by day, had his conscience pricked him. Those chats with the doctor in that grimy little consulting-room in Pimlico remained ever in his memory.
The doctor was the representative of those who held him in their power—persons who were being continually hunted by the police, yet who always evaded them—criminals all! To insult him would be to insult those who had paid him so well for his confidential services.
Yet, filled with contempt for himself, he asked whether he did not deserve to be degraded publicly, and drummed out of the army.
Were it not for Lady Elcombe and Enid he would long ago have gone to East Africa and effaced himself. But he could not bring himself to desert them.
He had satisfied himself that not a soul in England suspected the truth, for, by the Press, he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic Briton, because in his stirring public speeches, when he had put up for Parliament after the armistice, there was always a genuine "John Bull" ring.