“You are too touchy about it all, Mr. Crawley.”
“Of course I am. Do you try it, and see whether you will be touchy. You have worked hard at your profession, I daresay.”
“Well, yes; pretty well. To tell the truth, I have worked hard. By George, yes! It’s not so bad now as it used to be.”
“But you have always earned your bread; bread for yourself, and bread for your wife and little ones. You can buy tickets for the play.”
“I couldn’t always buy tickets, mind you.”
“I have worked as hard, and yet I cannot get bread. I am older than you, and I cannot earn my bare bread. Look at my clothes. If you had to go and beg from Mr. Crump, would not you be touchy?”
“As it happens, Crump isn’t so well off as I am.”
“Never mind. But I took it, and went home, and for two days I did not look at it. And then there came an illness upon me, and I know not what passed. But two men who had been hard on me came to the house when I was out, and my wife was in a terrible state; and I gave her the money, and she went into Silverbridge and paid them.”
“And this cheque was with what you gave her?”
“No; I gave her money in notes—just fifty pounds. When I gave it her, I thought I gave it all; and yet afterwards I thought I remembered that in my illness I had found the cheque with the dean’s money. But it was not so.”
“You are sure of that?”
“He has said that he put five notes of £10 each into the cover, and such notes I certainly gave to my wife.”
“Where then did you get the cheque?” Mr. Crawley again paused before he answered. “Surely, if you will exert your mind, you will remember,” said the lawyer. “Where did you get the cheque?”
“I do not know.”
Mr. Toogood threw himself back in his chair, took his knee up into his lap to nurse it, and began to think of it. He sat thinking of it for some minutes without a word—perhaps for five minutes, though the time seemed to be much longer to Mr. Crawley, who was, however, determined that he would not interrupt him. And Mr. Toogood’s thoughts were at variance with Mr. Toogood’s former words. Perhaps, after all, this scheme of Mr. Crawley’s—or rather the mode of defence on which he had resolved without any scheme—might be the best of which the case admitted. It might be well that he should go into court without a lawyer. “He has convinced me of his innocence,” Mr. Toogood said to himself, “and why should he not convince a jury? He has convinced me, not because I am specially soft, or because I love the man—for as to that I dislike him rather than otherwise;—but because there is either real truth in his words, or else so well-feigned a show of truth that no jury can tell the difference. I think it is true. By George, I think he did get the twenty pounds honestly, and that he does not this moment know where he got it. He may have put his finger into my eye; but, if so, why not also into the eyes of a jury?” Then he released his leg, and spoke something of his thoughts aloud. “It’s a sad story,” he said; “a very sad story.”
“Well, yes, it’s sad enough. If you could see my house, you’d say so.”
“I haven’t a doubt but what you’re as innocent as I am.” Mr. Toogood, as he said this, felt a little twinge of conscience. He did believe Mr. Crawley to be innocent, but he was not so sure of it as his words would seem to imply. Nevertheless he repeated the words again;—“as innocent as I am.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Crawley. “I don’t know. I think I am; but I don’t know.”
“I believe you are. But you see the case is a very distressing one. A jury has a right to say that the man in possession of a cheque for twenty pounds should account for his possession of it. If I understand the story aright, Mr. Soames will be able to prove that he brought the cheque into your house, and, as far as he knows, never took it out again.”
“I suppose so; all the same, if he brought it in, then did he also take it out again.”
“I am saying what he will prove—or, in other words, what he will state upon oath. You can’t contradict him. You can’t get into the box to do it—even if that would be of any avail; and I am glad that you cannot, as it would be of no avail. And you can put no one else into the box who can do so.”
“No; no.”
“That is to say, we think you cannot do so. People can do so many things that they don’t think they can do; and can’t do so many things that they think that they can do! When will the dean be home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Before the trial?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea.”
“It’s almost a toss-up whether he’d do more harm or good if he were there.”
“I wish he might be there if he has anything to say, whether it might be for harm or good.”
“And Mrs. Arabin;—she is with him?”
“They tell me she is not. She is in Europe. He is in Palestine.”
“In Palestine, is he?”
“So they tell me. A dean can go where he likes. He has no cure of souls to stand in the way of his pleasures.”
“He hasn’t—hasn’t he? I wish I were a dean; that is, if I were not a lawyer. Might I write a line to the dean—and to Mrs. Dean, if it seemed fit? You wouldn’t mind that? As you have come to see
