第301章

By this time Mr Crawley was looking full into Mr Toogood's face, and seeing that his cousin's eyes were streaming with tears began to get some insight into the man's character, and also some very dim insight into the facts which the man intended to communicate to himself. 'I do not as yet fully understand you, sir,' he said, 'being perhaps in such matters somewhat dull of intellect, but it seemeth to me that you are the messenger of glad tidings, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains.'

'Beautiful!' said Toogood. 'By George, I should think they are beautiful! Don't you hear me tell you that we have found out all about the cheque, and that you're as right as a trivet?' They were still on the little causeway leading from the school up the road, and Henry Grantly was waiting for them at the small wicket-gate. 'Mr Crawley,' said the major, 'I congratulate you with all my heart. I could not but accompany my friend, Mr Toogood, when he brought you this good news.'

'I do not even yet altogether comprehend what has been told to me,' said Crawley, now standing out on the road between the other two men. 'I am doubtless dull--very dull. May I beg some clearer word of explanation before I ask you to go with me to my wife?'

'The cheque was given to you by my aunt Eleanor.'

'Your aunt Eleanor!' said Crawley, now altogether in the clouds. Who was the major's aunt Eleanor? Though he had, no doubt, at different times heard all the circumstances of the connection, he had never realised the fact that his daughter's lover was the nephew of his old friend Arabin.

'Yes; by my aunt, Mrs Arabin.'

'She put it into the envelope with the notes,' said Toogood--'slipped it in without saying a word to anyone. I never heard of a woman doing such a thing in my life before. If she had died, or if we hadn't caught her, where should we all have been? Not but what I think I should have run Dan Stringer to ground too, and worked it out of him.'

'Then, after all, it was given to me by the dean?' said Crawley.

'It was in the envelope, but the dean did not know it,' said the major.

'Gentlemen,' said Mr Crawley. 'I was sure of it. I knew it. Weak as my mind may be--and at times it is very weak--I was certain that I could not have erred in such a matter. The more I struggled with my memory the more fixed with me became the fact--which I had forgotten but for a moment--that the document had formed a part of that small packet handed to me by the dean. But look you, sirs--bear with me yet for a moment. Isaid that it was so, and the dean denied it.'

'The dean did not know it, man,' said Toogood, almost in a passion.

'Bear with me yet awhile. So far have I been misdoubting the dean--whom I have long known to be in all things a true and honest gentleman--that I postponed the elaborated result of my own memory to his word. And Ifelt myself the more constrained to do this, because in a moment of forgetfulness, I had allowed myself to make a false statement--unwittingly false, indeed, nonetheless very false, unpardonably false. I had declared without thinking, that the money had come to me from the hands of Mr Soames, thereby seeming to cast a reflection upon that gentleman. When I had been guilty of so great a blunder, of so gross a violation of that ordinary care which should govern all words between man and man, especially when any question of money may be in doubt--how could I expect that anyone should accept my statement when contravened by that made by the dean? Gentlemen, I did not believe my own memory. Though all the little circumstances of that envelope, with its rich but perilous freightage, came back upon me from time to time with an exactness that has appeared to me to be almost marvellous, yet I have told myself that it was not so! Gentlemen, if you please, we will go into the house; my wife is there, and should not longer be left in suspense.' They passed on in silence for a few steps, till Crawley spoke again. 'Perhaps you will allow me the privilege to be alone with her for one minute--but for a minute. Her thanks shall not be delayed, where thanks are so richly due.'

'Of course,' said Toogood, wiping his eyes with a large red bandana handkerchief. 'By all means. We'll take a little walk. Come, along, major.' The major had turned his face away, and he also was weeping. 'By George! I never heard such a thing in all my life,' said Toogood. 'Iwouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I wouldn't indeed. If Iwere to tell that up in London, nobody would believe me.'

'I call that man a hero,' said Grantly.

'I don't know about being a hero. I never quite knew what makes a hero, if it isn't having three or four girls dying in love for you at once.

But to find a man who was going to let everything in the world go against him, because he believed another fellow better than himself!

There's many a chap thinks another man is wool-gathering; but this man has thought he was wool-gathering himself! It's not natural; and the world wouldn't go on if there many like that. He's beckoning us, and we had better go in.'

Mr Toogood went first, and the major followed him. When they entered the front door at the end of the passage, and on entering the room to the left they found Mr Crawley alone. 'She has fled, as though from an enemy,' he said, with a little attempt at a laugh; 'but I will pursue her, and bring her back.'

'No, Mr Crawley, no,' said the lawyer. 'She's a little upset, and all that kind of thing. We know what women are. Let her alone.'

'Nay, Mr Toogood; but then she would be angered with herself afterwards, and would lack the comfort of having spoken a word of gratitude. Pardon me, Major Grantly; but I would not have you leave us till she has seen you. It is as her cousin says. She is somewhat over-excited. But still, it will be the best that she should see you. Gentlemen, you will excuse me.'