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The pupil's success was the teacher's success and Madame was delighted accordingly. Hubert was leaving the room at the conclusion of the concert, when an attendant accosted him. "Beg pardon, sir! Mr. Lepel, sir?" "Yes; what is it?" "Miss West told me to give you this, sir;" and he put a twisted slip of paper into Hubert's hand. Hubert turned aside and opened the note.
The servants tightened their grasp on the man's arm. But at that moment an interruption occurred. The drawing-room door was flung open, and Hubert Lepel, ghastly pale, and staggering a little as he moved, appeared upon the scene. "This must go no further," he said. "Keep the police away, and let this man go. He is not Sydney Vane's murderer."
"So groaned Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, Not knowing he should die a holy man." Far enough from anything like holiness was Hubert Lepel, but a nobler life was possible to him yet. Florence commented that evening on his pale and wearied countenance, but he smiled at her questions, and would not allow that anything ailed him. He sat by her side for the greater part of the evening.
Lepel," said the Sister, "if I tell you that our Janie had a fault, you won't think hardly of her or of us? A girl of fifteen is not often perfect, and we are sometimes obliged to reprove, even to punish, those under our charge; and yet I assure you there was not a person in the house, woman or child, who did not love poor Janie." "I am to understand, then, that she was under punishment?"
"I should like to have some conversation with you," he said, in a tone that betokened irritation, "if you can spare a little time from your duties." "They are not particularly engrossing just now," said Miss Lepel evenly, indicating the book that lay upon her lap. "I am improving my mind by the study of the French language," she said.
"You'd better," said Westwood quietly, "because it hangs on a thread whether I ain't going to denounce Mr. Lepel as the man that killed Mr. Sydney Vane. I never thought of him before, although I did see him at the trial and knew that he'd been hanging round the place. He was her brother, sure enough he had a motive. Well, Cynthia?"
Ah, that rouses you up a bit, doesn't it? I've been to Russell Square." "To Russell Square." Cynthia's face turned crimson at once. "Oh, father, did you see did you hear " "Did I hear of Mr. Lepel? That's what I went for, my beauty! In spite of your quarrel, I thought you'd maybe like to hear how he was getting on. I talked to the gardener, a bit; Mr. Lepel's been ill again, you know."
Abstract justice would be done, no doubt, and Westwood's character would be cleared; but that was all. He ought to have spoken earlier if he meant to do good by speaking. Confession, he said to himself would be self-indulgence now. Hubert Lepel was wonderfully well versed, in subtle turns of argument in casuistry of the abstruser kind.
Crawford as it was in the times before the "struggle for material prosperity" when Washington Irving went and lived in England and on the European continent well-nigh half his life. Sir Lepel Griffin or Sir Lepel Griffin's reporter seems to forget the fact of Irving's long absenteeism when he classes him with "the old race" of eminent American authors who stayed at home.
Oh, Lepel, it is not her beauty only that has won my heart! Her nature is the nature of an angel." His voice failed him. For the first time in my remembrance of our long companionship, he burst into tears. I was so shocked and distressed that I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own self-control. In the effort to comfort him, I asked if he had ventured to confide in his father.
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