He smiled with tenderness at the dear heart planning and daring so
very much for him. But in his smile was a touch of disdain also, he not
intending to “flee”.
XV
MONSIGNOR
Hogarth's first thought, as getting-up bell clattered réveille through
the gallery, was of Loveday's cypher, and by the time the warder came
to ask if he would see governor or doctor, a thought of Monsignor O'Hara
had somehow mixed itself with the thought of the cypher; when an orderly
handed in the day's brown loaf, he was thinking, “Strange that he never
told me what he has done”; eating his pint of gruel, he thought: “If I
will not escape myself, I might perhaps let another.”
“What!” said O'Hara on the march out, “you still here?”
“Where should I be?” answered Hogarth, dull and sullen.
“Where palaces stand open for you, and bank-notes--have you ever
realized something very charming in the Helen pallor of a bank-note,
Hogarth? And gold-yellow, sparkling gold! Hogarth, I--_love_ gold! It is
a confession--”
“Is it that love which brought you here?” Hogarth asked with his
sideward stare.
Whereupon the priest turned a cold gaze upon him--had regarded Hogarth
as a well-bred man, or would hardly have conversed with him.
“I had a motive for asking”, said Hogarth, eyeing the face of the
prelate--a man of very coarse feature; a small head, made to receive the
tonsure, with a low brow; a stern bottom lip, and long upper; a fat neck
held majestically erect; and up stuck his double chin. In profile,
the part between the sharp edge of the bottom lip and the chin-tip was
divided, down near the chin tip, by an angle and crease; and the lower
face seemed too massive for the size of the head.
Nothing could be more exquisite than the contrast between his air of
force, authority and importance, and the knickerbockers, the coarse cap,
the canvas slop-jacket, which he wore.
Outwardly calm, he was yet very excited by that “I had a motive”; he
said to himself: “Suppose this man has some plan! He could invent ten,
if he only knew it. And suppose he would tell me it, if I make him
believe me innocent! It would be like him!”
When the eleven o'clock dinner-bell rang, and they two were again
together, O'Hara said: “Hogarth, I have for some time been intending to
give you my story. Have I in your eyes the air of a guilty man?”
“God knows,” answered Hogarth, with a shrug; “you talk nicely, and you
know much”.
“So much for the hollowness of friendship!”
“Don't be sentimental”, said Hogarth: “I never pretended to be any
friend of yours; but I do respect your talents, do pity your misery:
and if I knew the solid facts of, as you have said, your 'innocence', I
might--”
“_What_?” whispered O'Hara with a thievish, fierce glance.
“Help you”.
“_In God's truth?_”
“I might”.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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