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He went down by road in a hired brougham, and the journey seemed a long one; but it was an unspeakable relief to John Saltram to see the suburban roads and green fields after the long imprisonment of the Temple, a relief that moved him almost to tears in his extreme weakness. "Could you believe that a man would be so childish, Gilbert?" he said apologetically.
At first she had been just a little shy and constrained in her talk with John Saltram. Her lover's account of this man had not inspired her with any exalted opinion of his character. She was rather inclined to look upon him as a person to be dreaded, a friend whose influence was dangerous at best, and who might prove the evil genius of Gilbert Fenton's life.
He went into the front drawing-room, shook hands with Mrs. Branston, and established himself with a permanent air beside the piano. Adela did not seem particularly glad to see him; and John Saltram, who had met him before in Cavendish-square, received him with supreme indifference. "I am blessed, as I daresay you perceive, Mr. Fenton, in my only son," Mrs.
But this time he questioned her closely, and contrived that her description of this man's outward semblance should be especially minute and careful. Yes, the picture which arose before him as Ellen Carley spoke was the picture of John Saltram. The description seemed in every particular to apply to the face and figure of his one chosen friend.
I did not think you could be so hard, Gilbert; I thought you would have more mercy on the man who wronged you." "I could pardon any injury but this. I will never forgive this." John Saltram shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air. "It is a mistake, my dear fellow," he said. "Life is not long enough for these strong passions.
"Think badly of you, my dear kind soul! What can I think, except that you are one of the most generous of women?" "And about these other troubles, Mr. Saltram, which have no relation to money matters; you will not give me your confidence?" "There is nothing that I can confide in you, Mrs. Branston. Others are involved in the matter of which I spoke, I am not free to talk about it."
"Does the doctor call it a dangerous case?" "Well, sir, not to deceive you, he ast me if Mr. Saltram had any friends as I could send for; and I says no, not to my knowledge; 'for, says Mr. Mew, 'if he have any relations or friends near at hand, they ought to be told that he's in a bad way; and only this morning he said as how he should like to call in a physician, for the case was a bad one."
Gilbert took a scrap of ribbon from his breast, a ribbon with a blue ground and a rosebud on it, a ribbon which he had chosen himself for Marian, in the brief happy days of their engagement. John Saltram contemplated the scrap of colour with a smile that was half sombre, half ironical.
To which passages Mr. Saltram listened kindly, with a very vague notion of the writer. "I am afraid she is rather a namby-pamby person," he thought, "with nothing but her beauty to recommend her. That wonderful gift of beauty has such power to bewitch the most sensible man upon occasion."
From what immediately passed between the two ladies I gathered that the latter had been sent for post-haste to fill the gap created by the absence of the mistress of the house. "Good!" I remember crying, "she'll be put by ME;" and my apprehension was promptly justified. Mrs. Saltram taken in to dinner, and taken in as a consequence of an appeal to her amiability, was Mrs. Saltram with a vengeance.
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