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she replied with feminine logic; "only it was you who were against the table, John; it was you whom Michael caught; and I saw you go down in the night--to put it back, as I thought."
"Saw me?" I asked, in surprise.
"Yes, dear. I was awake and saw a light go by my door. It shone underneath it. And I came out and looked over the banisters."
"I went to see if the wretched thing had come back," I said. "And it was rather I who caught Michael than Michael who caught me, when you turned the lights out. We were both expecting to catch Gussie, and caught each other."
"And, oh, I have been so wretchedly unhappy," she went on, "thinking appearances were so against you, and yet knowing I was allowing Gussie to remain under suspicion when I knew it wasn't he. . . . But when it seemed the thing was actually stolen, I couldn't keep quiet any longer. It was bad enough when it was only a practical joke, as we thought. . . . And then I seemed to be helping to bring suspicion towards you when I cleared Gussie. . . ."
She wiped away a tear.
"I don't care now," she smiled. "Nothing on earth matters. So long as you love me--I don't see how I can have a care in the world. . . . You're sure, darling?"
I endeavoured to express myself without the use of halting and unfluent speech.
"When did you first love me?" asked my sweet and beautiful darling, when I released her.
"I don't know," I said. "I have always loved you, and now I worship you, and I always shall," and again she gave me a long embrace that seemed to stop the beating of my heart and lift me up and up to an incredible heaven of ecstasy and joy almost unbearable.
The sound of footsteps and a hand on the door brought us back to earth. We sprang to our feet, and when David entered, Isobel was putting away her music, and I was consulting a small pocket-book with terrific abstraction from my surroundings.
"Excuse me, sir," said David, halting before me. "Might I speak to you, sir?"
"You're doing it, David," said I.
"In private, sir, a moment," he explained.
I went to the door with him, and having closed it, he produced a note and gave it to me.
"Mr. Digby, sir. He very specially instructed me to give you this in private at ten o'clock this evening, sir, thank you, sir."
"Thank you, David," said I, and went along to the smoking-room, opening the letter as I went.
Although I felt that I ought to be filled with apprehension, anxiety, and trouble, my heart sang for glee, and I could have danced down the long corridor, to the surprise and disapproval of the various stiff and stately Brandons, male and female, who looked down from its walls.
"This is most selfish and wrong," said I, and repressed a desire to sing, whistle, and whoop, and literally jump for joy.
"Isobel! Isobel! Isobel!" sang my heart. "Isobel loves me and I love Isobel. . . ."
The smoking-room was empty, and I could hear the click of balls from the neighbouring billiard-room, showing why. Gussie was evidently at his favourite, somewhat aimless, evening employment.
I turned up the lights, poked up the fire, pulled up the biggest and deepest chair, and filled my pipe and lit it.
Had I come straight here from the dining-room, and here received Digby's letter, I should have snatched it, and opened it with sinking heart and trembling fingers.
Now, nothing seemed of much importance, compared with the great fact of which my heart was chanting its pæan of praise and thanks to God.
Love is very selfish I fear--but then it is the very selves of two people becoming one self. . . .
And then I read poor Digby's letter. It was as follows:--
"My dear John, I now take up my pen to write you these few lines, hoping they find you as they won't find me. After terrific thought and mental wrestling, which cost me a trouser-button, I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer deceive you all and let the innocent suffer for my guilty sin or sinny guilt. I go to find my noble-hearted twin, to kneel at his feet and say, 'Brother, I have sinned in thy sight' (but it was in the dark really) 'and am no more worthy to be called anything but what I am.' No one knows the shame I feel, not even me; and, by the time you get this, I shall be well on my way to--where I am going. Will you please tell Aunt that Michael's noble and beautiful action has wrung my heart, and I wish he had wrung my neck. I cannot let him take the blame for me, like this. I shall write to her from Town. When you find yourself in the witness-dock or prisoner's-box tell the Beak that you have always known me to be weak but not vicious, and that my downfall has been due to smoking cigarettes and going in for newspaper competitions. Also that you are sure that, if given time, I shall redeem myself by hard work, earn thirty shillings a week at least, and return the thirty thousand pounds out of my savings. Write and let me know how things go on, as soon as I send you an address--which you will, of course, keep to yourself. Give my love to Isobel. Play up and don't forget you've GOT to stand by me and make people realise the truth that I actually am the thief--or suspicion still rests on Claudia (since Isobel and Gussie are out of it), if we three do not provide the criminal amongst us. And, of course, I can't let Beau suffer for me. Directly you hear from him, let him know by wire that I have confessed and bolted, and that he can return to Brandon Abbas and admit that he was shielding the real culprit (whom he knew to be ME or YOU or CLAUDIA!). Give my love to Isobel. Ever thine, Digby."
For a moment this drove even Isobel from my mind.
It had never occurred to me for one moment that Digby had actually fled, as Michael had done. Could it be possible that he was speaking the truth in the letter?
Could he have stolen the "Blue Water" as he said, and had Michael's flight and shouldering of the blame forced his hand and compelled him, in very shame, to confess? . . .
Or did he, in his heart of hearts, think that Michael was really guilty and had fled rather than allow three innocent people to lie under suspicion with himself? Had Digby, thinking this, fled to divert suspicion from the guilty Michael, to confuse the issue and divide the pursuit, thus giving him a better chance to get clear away? . . .
Probably neither. It was much more likely that his idea was to help to shield the person whom Michael thought he was shielding, and at the same time to share with Michael the suspicion thus diverted from the guilty person.
The moment it was known that Michael had fled, the world and his wife would say, "The vile young thief!"
Directly Digby followed him they would say, "Which of them is the thief?" and no eye would be turned enquiringly upon those who, in their conscious innocence, had remained at home.
And whom did Michael and Digby suspect, if they were both innocent?
Obviously either Claudia or me.
And if they could no more suspect me than I could suspect them . . . ?
It dawned on me, or rather it was stabbed into my heart suddenly, as with a knife, that it was quite as much my affair to help in preventing suspicion, just or unjust, from falling upon Claudia; and that if they could face obloquy, poverty, hardship, and general wrecking of their lives for Claudia and for me and for each other--why, so could I for them, and that it was my duty to go too.
Moreover, when detectives and criminal-experts got to work on the case, they would be quite capable of saying that there was nothing to prevent Isobel and Augustus from being in collusion to prove each other innocent, and would suspect one or both of them the more.
To us, who knew her, it was completely proven that Augustus was innocent, because she said so.
To a detective, it would more probably be a clue to the guilty person--the girl who produced this piece of "evidence" which incidentally proclaimed her own innocence.
Moreover, the wretched Augustus had most undoubtedly been surprised