Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/64

 I did follow her. As for that little haughty Olivia Berkeley, the girl gives me a look that is equivalent to a box on the ear every time Madame Koller is mentioned. If ever I marry, I shan't take a woman of spirit, you may depend upon it. I shall take a placid, stout creature. An eaglet like Olivia Berkeley is well enough for a man to amuse himself with—but for steady matrimony give me a barnyard fowl."

"God help you," answered Cave piously.

"But what really brought me here—although I knew all the time that I ought not to be loitering in Europe, and would probably have come anyhow—was this poor devil, Bob Henry, in jail, charged with murdering Hackett, that scalawag the Hibbses brought here."

At this Cave sat up, full of animation.

"I can help the poor fellow, I think," he said. "I went to see him as soon as they put him in jail—a wretched looking object in rags he was, too. He seemed to put great faith in you, and I did not tell him of some evidence that I have got hold of. The fellow's going to get clear between us, I think."

Pembroke sat up too, and took the cigar out of his mouth. The lawyer's instinct rose within him, and he took to his profession like a pointer to his field work.

"You see, having been away during Hackett's time, I know nothing of his habits or associations except from hearsay. Any lawyer in the county