It will be a grim business, Gemmell, as you know, and if I am Sentimental Tommy through it all, why grudge me my comic little strut?"
David said, "You can't take her to London."
"I shall take her to wherever she wants to go."
"There is one place only she wants to go to, and that is Double Dykes."
"I am prepared to take her there."
"And your work?"
"It must take second place now. I must write; it is the only thing I can do. If I could make a living at anything else I would give up writing altogether."
"Why?"
"She would be pleased if she could understand, and writing is the joy of my life--two reasons."
But the doctor smiled.
"You are right," said Tommy. "I see I was really thinking what a fine picture of self-sacrifice I should make sitting in Double Dykes at a loom!"
They talked of ways and means, and he had to admit that he had little money. But the new book would bring in a good deal, David supposed.
"The manuscript is lost," Tommy replied, crushing down his agitation.
"Lost! When? Where?"
"I don't know. It was in the bag I left behind at St. Gian, and I supposed it was still in it when the bag was forwarded to me here. I did not look for more than a month. I took credit to myself for neglecting my manuscript, and when at last I looked it was not there. I telegraphed and wrote to the innkeeper at St. Gian, and he replied that my things had been packed at his request in presence of my friends there, the two ladies you know of. I wrote to them, and they replied that this was so, and said they thought they remembered seeing in the bottom of the bag some such parcel in brown paper as I described. But it is not there now, and I have given up all hope of ever seeing it again. No, I have no other copy. Every page was written half a dozen times, but I kept the final copy only."
"It is scarcely a thing anyone would steal."
"No; I suppose they took it out of the bag at St. Gian, and forgot to pack it again. It was probably flung away as of no account."
"Could it have been taken out on the way here?"
"The key was tied to the handle so that the custom officials might be able to open the bag. Perhaps they are fonder of English manuscripts than one would expect, or more careless of them."
"You can think of no other way in which it might have disappeared?"
"None," Tommy said; and then the doctor faced him squarely.
"Are you trying to screen Grizel?" he asked. "Is it true, what people are saying?"
"What are they saying?"
"That she destroyed it. I heard that yesterday, and told them your manuscript was in my house, as I thought it was. Was it she?"
"No, no. Gavinia must have started that story. I did look for the package among Grizel's things."
"What made you think of that?"
"I had seen her looking into my bag one day. And she used to say I loved my manuscripts too much ever to love her. But I am sure she did not do it."
"Be truthful, Sandys. You know how she always loved the truth."
"Well, then, I suppose it was she."
After a pause the doctor said: "It must be about as bad as having a limb lopped off."
"If only I had been offered that alternative!" Tommy replied.
"And yet," David mused, better pleased with him, "you have not cried out."
"Have I not! I have rolled about in agony, and invoked the gods, and cursed and whimpered; only I take care that no one shall see me."
"And that no one should know poor Grizel had done this thing. I admire you for that, Sandys."
"But it has leaked out, you see," Tommy said; "and they will all be admiring me for it at the wedding, and no doubt I shall be cocking my greetin' eyes at them to note how much they are admiring."
But when the wedding-day came he was not doing that. While he and Grizel stood up before Mr. Dishart, in the doctor's parlour, he was thinking of her only. His eyes never left her, not even when he had to reply "I do." His hand pressed hers all the time. He kept giving her reassuring little nods and smiles, and it was thus that he helped Grizel through.