The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman

reason of the secrecy was this,” she continued; “they became engaged the very night before Reuben was arrested, and, when he heard of the charge against him, he insisted that no one should be told unless, and until, he was fully acquitted. I was the only person who was in their confidence, and as I was sworn to secrecy, of course I couldn’t tell you; nor did I suppose that the matter would interest you. Why should it?”

      “Imbecile that I am,” I murmured. “If I had only known!”

      “Well, if you had known,” said she; “what difference could it have made to you?”

      This question she asked without looking at me, but I noted that her cheek had grown a shade paler.

      “Only this,” I answered. “That I should have been spared many a day and night of needless self-reproach and misery.”

      “But why?” she asked, still keeping her face averted. “What had you to reproach yourself with?”

      “A great deal,” I answered, “if you consider my supposed position. If you think of me as the trusted agent of a man, helpless and deeply wronged—a man whose undeserved misfortunes made every demand upon chivalry and generosity; if you think of me as being called upon to protect and carry comfort to the woman whom I regarded as, virtually, that man’s betrothed wife; and then if you think of me as proceeding straightway, before I had known her twenty-four hours, to fall hopelessly in love with her myself, you will admit that I had something to reproach myself with.”

      She was still silent, rather pale and very thoughtful, and she seemed to breathe more quickly than usual.

      “Of course,” I continued, “you may say that it was my own lookout, that I had only to keep my own counsel, and no one would be any the worse. But there’s the mischief of it. How can a man who is thinking of a woman morning, noon and night; whose heart leaps at the sound of her coming, whose existence is a blank when she is away from him—a blank which he tries to fill by recalling, again and again, all that she has said and the tones of her voice, and the look that was in her eyes when she spoke—how can he help letting her see, sooner or later, that he cares for her? And if he does, when he has no right to, there is an end of duty and chivalry and even common honesty.”

      “Yes, I understand now,” said Juliet softly. “Is this the way?” She tripped up the steps leading to Fountain Court and I followed cheerfully. Of course it was not the way, and we both knew it, but the place was silent and peaceful, and the plane-trees cast a pleasant shade on the gravelled court. I glanced at her as we walked slowly towards the fountain. The roses were mantling in her cheeks now and her eyes were cast down, but when she lifted them to me for an instant, I saw that they were shining and moist.

      “Did you never guess?” I asked.

      “Yes,” she replied in a low voice, “I guessed; but—but then,” she added shyly, “I thought I had guessed wrong.”

      We walked on for some little time without speaking again until we came to the further side of the fountain, where we stood listening to the quiet trickle of the water, and watching the sparrows as they took their bath on the rim of the basin. A little way off another group of sparrows had gathered with greedy joy around some fragments of bread that had been scattered abroad by the benevolent Templars, and hard by a more sentimentally-minded pigeon, unmindful of the crumbs and the marauding sparrows, puffed out his breast and strutted and curtsied before his mate with endearing gurgles.

      Juliet had rested her hand on one of the little posts that support the chain by which the fountain is enclosed and I had laid my hand on hers. Presently she turned her hand over so that mine lay in its palm; and so we were standing hand-in-hand when an elderly gentleman, of dry and legal aspect, came up the steps and passed by the fountain. He looked at the pigeons and then he looked at us, and went his way smiling and shaking his head.

      “Juliet,” said I.

      She looked up quickly with sparkling eyes and a frank smile that was yet a little shy, too.

      “Yes.”

      “Why did he smile—that old gentleman—when he looked at us?”

      “I can’t imagine,” she replied mendaciously.

      “It was an approving smile,” I said. “I think he was remembering his own spring-time and giving us his blessing.”

      “Perhaps he was,” she agreed. “He looked a nice old thing.” She gazed fondly at the retreating figure and then turned again to me. Her cheeks had grown pink enough by now, and in one of them a dimple displayed itself to great advantage in its rosy setting.

      “Can you forgive me, dear, for my unutterable folly?” I asked presently, as she glanced up at me again.

      “I am not sure,” she answered. “It was dreadfully silly of you.”

      “But remember, Juliet, that I loved you with my whole heart—as I love you now and shall love you always.”

      “I can forgive you anything when you say that,” she answered softly.

      Here the voice of the distant Temple clock was heard uttering a polite protest. With infinite reluctance we turned away from the fountain, which sprinkled us with a parting benediction, and slowly retraced our steps to Middle Temple Lane and thence into Pump Court.

      “You haven’t said it, Juliet,” I whispered, as we came through the archway into the silent, deserted court.

      “Haven’t I, dear?” she answered; “but you know it, don’t you? You know I do.”

      “Yes, I know,” I said; “and that knowledge is all my heart’s desire.”

      She laid her hand in mine for a moment with a gentle pressure and then drew it away; and so we passed through into the cloisters.

      THE MAN WITH THE NAILED SHOES (1909)

      There are, I suppose, few places even on the East Coast of England more lonely and remote than the village of Little Sundersley and the country that surrounds it. Far from any railway, and some miles distant from any considerable town, it remains an outpost of civilization, in which primitive manners and customs and old-world tradition linger on into an age that has elsewhere forgotten them. In the summer, it is true, a small contingent of visitors, adventurous in spirit, though mostly of sedate and solitary habits, make their appearance to swell its meagre population, and impart to the wide stretches of smooth sand that fringe its shores a fleeting air of life and sober gaiety; but in late September—the season of the year in which I made its acquaintance—its pasture-lands lie desolate, the rugged paths along the cliffs are seldom trodden by human foot, and the sands are a desert waste on which, for days together, no footprint appears save that left by some passing sea-bird.

      I had been assured by my medical agent, Mr. Turcival, that I should find the practice of which I was now taking charge “an exceedingly soft billet, and suitable for a studious man;” and certainly he had not misled me, for the patients were, in fact, so few that I was quite concerned for my principal, and rather dull for want of work. Hence, when my friend John Thorndyke, the well-known medico-legal expert, proposed to come down and stay with me for a weekend and perhaps a few days beyond, I hailed the proposal with delight, and welcomed him with open arms.

      “You certainly don’t seem to be overworked, Jervis,” he remarked, as we turned out of the gate after tea, on the day of his arrival, for a stroll on the shore. “Is this a new practice, or an old one in a state of senile decay?”

      “Why, the fact is,” I answered, “there is virtually no practice. Cooper—my principal—has been here about six years, and as he has private means he has never made any serious effort to build one up; and the other man, Dr. Burrows, being uncommonly keen, and the people very conservative, Cooper has never really got his foot in. However, it doesn’t seem to trouble him.”

      “Well, if he is satisfied, I suppose you are,” said Thorndyke, with a smile. “You are getting a seaside holiday, and being paid for it. But I didn’t know you were as near to the