"For your proper understanding," said Dale, with determination, "I must commence at the commencement. If, as promised, I am to be heard--"

"But you _have_ been heard."

"Your pardon, sir. You have examined me, but I have made no statement."

"Oh, very well." Sir John, as well as the other two, a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of patient boredom. "Fire ahead, then, Mr. Dale."

And, bowing, Dale plunged into his long-pondered oration. Their three faces told him that he was failing. Not a single point seemed to score. He was muddled, hopeless, but still brave. He struggled on stanchly. With a throbbing at his temples, a p.r.i.c.kly heat on his chest, a clammy coldness in his spine--with his voice sounding harsh and querulous, or dull and faint--with the sense that all the invisible powers of evil had combined to deride, to defeat, and to destroy him--he struggled on toward the bitterly bitter end of his ordeal.

He had nearly got there, was just reaching his man-to-man finale, when the judges cut him short.

"One moment, Mr. Dale."

The nice young man had come in, and was talking both to Sir John and the Colonel.

"Thank you. Just for a moment."

Of his own accord Dale had gone back to the window.

It was all over. Never mind about the end of the speech. Nothing could have been gained by saying it. The tension of his nerves relaxed, and a wave of sick despair came rolling upward from viscera to brain. He knew now with absolute certainty that right was going to count for nothing; no justice existed in the world; these men were about to decide against him.

"Yes,"--and the young man laughed genially--"he said I was to offer his apologies."

Dale listened to the conversation at the table without attempting to understand it. Somebody, as he gathered dully, was demanding an interview. But the interruption could make no difference. It was all over.

"He said he wouldn't take 'No' for an answer."

Then they all laughed; and Sir John said to the young man, "Very well.

Ask him in."

The young man went out, leaving the door open; and Dale saw that the secretary had risen and brought another chair to the table. Then footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Sir John and the Colonel smilingly turned their eyes toward the open doorway. Dale, turning his eyes in the same direction, started violently.

The newcomer was Mr. Barradine.

He shook hands with the gentlemen at the table, who had both got up to receive him; he talked to them pleasantly and chaffingly, and there was more laughter; then he nodded to Dale; then he said he was much obliged to the secretary for giving him the chair, and then he sat down.

Dale's thoughts were like those of a drowning sailor, when through the darkness and the storm he hears the voice of approaching aid. He had been going down in the deep, cruel waters, with the longed-for lights of home, the adored face of his wife, the dreaded gates of h.e.l.l, all dancing wildly before his eyes--and now. Breath again, hope again, life again.

He listened, but did not trouble to understand. It was dreamlike, glorious, sublime. The ill.u.s.trious visitor had alluded to the fact that Jack, the nice young man, was a connection of his; and had explained that, hearing from Jack of to-day's appointment, he determined to go right down there and beard the lions in their den. He had also spoken of a nephew of Sir John's, who was coming to have a bang at the Abbey partridges in September. He further reminded the Colonel that he did not consider himself a stranger, because they used to meet often at such and such a place. He also asked if the Colonel kept up his riding. Now, without any change of tone, he was talking of the case.

And Dale, watching, felt as if his whole heart had been melted, and as if it was streaming across the room in a warm vapor of grat.i.tude.

"My interest," said Mr. Barradine, "is simply public spirit; although it is quite true that I know Mr. Dale personally. Indeed, he and his wife have been friends with me and my family for more years than I care to count."

Dale caught his breath and coughed. He was almost overwhelmed by the n.o.ble turn of that last phrase. Friends! Nothing more, and nothing less. Not patron and dependents, but friends.

"And, of course," Mr. Barradine was saying, "I want my friend to come out of it all right--as I honestly believe he deserves to come out of it."

Dale felt himself on the verge of breaking down and sobbing. His strength had gone long ago, and now all his courage went too. With his grat.i.tude there mingled a cowardly joy that he had not been left to fight things out alone and be beaten, that succor had come at the supreme moment. Ardently admiring as well as fervently thanking, he watched the friend in need, the splendid ally, the only agent of Providence that could have saved him.

Who would not admire such a prince?

He was old and big, and though rather frail, yet so magnificently grand. His costume was of the plainest character--black satin neck-scarf tied negligently, with a pearl pin stuck through it anyhow, a queer sort of black pea-jacket with braid on its edges, square-toed patent-leather boots with white spats--and, nevertheless, he seemed to be dressed as sumptuously as if he had been wearing all the gold and glitter of his Privy Councilor's uniform. His face seemed to Dale like the mask of a Roman emperor--a high-bridged delicate nose, thin gray hair combed back from a low forehead, a ridge like a straight bar above the tired eyes and a puffiness of flesh below them, a moustache that showed the lose curves of the mouth, and a small pointed beard that perhaps concealed an unbeautiful protrusion of the chin. His voice, so calm, so evenly modulated, had been trained in the senate and the palace. His att.i.tude, his manner, his freedom from gesture and emphasis, all indicated a born ruler as well as a born aristocrat.

Was it likely that when _he_ spoke he would fail?

Already he had swung the balance. Dale could see that he would not be resisted. And as the great man sat talking--chatting, one might almost term it--he seemed to be taking out of the atmosphere every element of discomfort, all the pa.s.sionate excitement, the hot throbs of indignation, the cold tremors of fear. Dale felt his muscles recovering tone, his legs stiffening themselves, his blood circulating richly and freely.

"You have here," said Mr. Barradine, "a man of unblemished reputation, who, acting obviously from conscientious motives, has in the exercise of his judgment done so and so. Now, admitting for the sake of argument, that he has done wrong, are you to punish him for an error of judgment? We do not, however, admit that it was an error."...

Dale looked dogged and stern. He had been on the point of saying, "I never will admit it;" but the words would not come out. He must not interrupt. This was Heaven-sent advocacy.

Mr. Barradine went on quietly and grandly. In truth what he said now was almost what had been said by the authorities at Rodhaven--good intentions, over-zeal, a mistake, if you care to call it so;--but from these lips it fell on Dale's ear as soothing music. Mr. Barradine might say whatever he pleased: and the man he was defending would not object.

"And now if I show the edge of the little private ax that I myself have to grind!" Mr. Barradine laughed. They all laughed. "Our member--we agree in politics; but, well, you know, he and I do not altogether hit it off. We are both of us getting older than we were--and perhaps we both suffer from swollen head. It's the prevailing malady of the period."

Sir John laughed gaily. "I don't think you show any marked symptoms of it. But I can't answer for what's-his-name."

"Well;" and Mr. Barradine made his first gesture--just a wave of the right hand. "One can't have two kings at Brentford. And honestly I shall feel that you have given me a smack in the face, if--"

"Oh, my dear sir!"

Then they sent Dale out of the room. Really it seemed that they had forgotten his presence, or they might have banished him before. It was the Colonel who suddenly appeared to remember that he was still standing over there by the window.

He waited in a large empty room, and the time pa.s.sed slowly. It was the luncheon hour, and far and near he heard the footsteps of clerks going to and coming from the midday meal. Bigwigs no doubt would take their luncheon privately, in small groups, here and there, all over the building. He too was getting very hungry.

An hour pa.s.sed, an hour and a half, two hours; and then he was again summoned to the other room. There was no one in it except the secretary--looking hot and red after a copious repast, speaking jovially and familiarly, and seeming altogether more common and less important than when under the restraining influence of bigwigs.

"Ah, here you are." And he chuckled amicably, and gave Dale a roguish nod. "You've had your wires pulled A1 for you. It's decided to stretch a point in your favor. Not to make a secret, they don't wish to run counter to Mr. B.'s wishes. You have been lucky, Mr. Dale, in having him behind you."

Dale gulped, but did not say anything.

"Very well. I am to inform you that you will be reinstated; but--in order to allow the talk to blow over--you will not resume your duties for a fortnight. You will take a fortnight's holiday--from now--on full pay."

Dale said nothing. He could have said so much. At this moment he felt that his victory had been intrinsically a defeat. But the strength had gone from him; and in its place there was only joy--weak but immense joy in the knowledge that all had ended happily. And the world would say that he had won.

V

Outside in the streets his joy increased. Nothing had mattered.

Beneath all surface sensations there was the deep fundamental rapture: as of a wild animal that has been caught, and is now loose and free--a squirrel that has escaped from the trap, and, whisking and bounding through sunlight and shadow, understands that its four paws are still under it, and that only a little of its fur is left in those iron teeth. Security after peril--articulate man or dumb brute, can one taste a fuller bliss?

But he must share and impart it. Mavis! He might not go dashing back to Hampshire--the fortnight's exile prevented him from joining her there. A broad grin spread across his face. What was that learned saying that his old schoolmaster, Mr. Fenley, used to be so fond of repeating? "If Mahomet can not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mahomet."

The memory of this cla.s.sical quotation tickled him, and he went chuckling into the Cannon Street post office and wrote out a telegraph-form.