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He had fainted. The thought passed through Louis' mind that stupefaction at the complex unrighteousness of the petty-cash records had caused Horrocleave to lose consciousness. Then the true explanation occurred to him. It was the pain in his ankle that had overcome the heroic sufferer. Louis had desired to go to his aid, but he could not budge from his post.
When he had obediently taken the food and thanked her for it very nicely, he felt much better. The desire for a clergyman, or even for a lawyer, passed away from his mind; he forgot the majority of his sins and his aspirations, and the need for restoring the defalcations to Jim Horrocleave seemed considerably less urgent.
She had prevented him from running into a hundred expenses during their engagement and in connection with the house. And he had in the end enthusiastically praised her common sense. But that very morning at the midday meal he had surprised her by announcing that on account of the reception he should not go to the works at all in the afternoon, though he had omitted to warn Horrocleave.
"Ye must pay me, and I'll give ye notice to leave," said Horrocleave, quickly, in a queer, quiet voice. The wrath was driven out of him. The mere apparition of Rachel had saved her husband. A silence. Rachel had disappeared. Then there was a distant tapping. Neither of the men spoke nor moved. They could hear the outer door open and light footfalls in the outer office. "Anybody here?"
He would have liked to peer into Krupp's inmost mind and know exactly how Krupp had been discussing him with Jim Horrocleave. He would have liked to tell Krupp in cutting tones that waiters had no right to chatter to one customer about another. And then he would have liked to destroy Krupp. But he could not.
But now his mind was terribly and inexplicably changed, and it seemed to him impossible to gull the acute and mighty Horrocleave. Failure, exposure, disgrace, ruin, seemed inevitable and also intolerable. It was astonishing that he should have deceived himself into an absurd security. The bank-notes, by some magic virtue which they possessed, had opened his eyes to the truth.
His godlike dignity would not permit him to show by even the slightest gesture that he had been inconvenienced. The next moment he perceived that Providence had been watching over him. If he had gone to America unknown to Horrocleave, Horrocleave might indeed have proved seriously awkward.... Extradition was there such a word, and such a thing?
And there was Louis staring like a fool at the open page of the petty-cash book, incriminating himself every instant. "Hello!" said Louis, without looking round. "What's up?" "What's up?" Horrocleave scowled. "What d'ye mean?" "I thought you were limping just the least bit in the world," said Louis, whose tact was instinctive and indestructible.
A good thing he did send it, though. I'd quite forgotten." "But what is it? What does he want you to go on Sunday for?" Louis shrugged his shoulders, as if to intimate that nothing that Horrocleave did ought to surprise anybody. "Then what about church?" Louis replied on the spur of the moment "You go there by yourself. I'll meet you there. I can easily be there by eleven."
If he had not been optimistic and an incurable procrastinator and a believer in luck at the last moment, he would have seen that nothing but a miracle could save him if Horrocleave were indeed suspicious. Happily for his peace of mind, he was incapable of looking a fact in the face. Against all reason he insisted to himself that with the notes he might reach salvation.
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