ible. I should be seized by the police. You
don't know the police."

"Nonsense," I cried, "the police can't stop you and not a man of them
will see you from start to finish. Besides, I have loose money for any
I do meet, and none of them can resist a 'tip.' You will simply get
out of the brougham and walk fifty yards and you will be on the yacht
and free. In fact, if you like you shall not come out of the brougham
until the sailors surround you as a guard of honour. On board the
yacht no one will touch you. No warrant runs there. Come on, man!"

"Oh, Frank," he groaned, "it's impossible!"

"What's impossible?" I insisted. "Let's consider everything anew at
breakfast to-morrow morning in France. If you want to come back,
there's nothing to prevent you. The yacht will take you back in
twenty-four hours. You will not have broken your bail; you'll have
done nothing wrong. You can go to France, Germany or Siberia so long
as you come back by the twentieth of May. Take it that I offer you a
holiday in France for ten days. Surely it is better to spend a week
with me than in that dismal house in Oakley Street, where the very
door gives one the creeps."

"Oh, Frank, I'd love to," he groaned. "I see everything you say, but I
can't. I dare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap, I can only wait for
the end."

I began to get impatient; he was weaker than I had imagined, weaker a
hundred times.

"Come for a trip, then, man," I cried, and I brought him within twenty
yards of the carriage; but there he stopped as if he had made up his
mind.

"No, no, I can't come. I could not go about in France feeling that the
policeman's hand might fall on my shoulder at any moment. I could not
live a life of fear and doubt: it would kill me in a month." His tone
was decided.

"Why let your imagination run away with you?" I pleaded. "Do be
reasonable for once. Fear and doubt would soon be over. If the police
don't get you in France within a week after the date fixed for the
trial, you need have no further fear, for they won't get you at all:
they don't want you. You're making mountains out of molehills with
nervous fancies."

"I should be arrested."

"Nonsense," I replied, "who would arrest you? No one has the right.
You are out on bail: your bail answers for you till the 20th. Money
talks, man; Englishmen always listen to money. It'll do you good with
the public and the jury to come back from France to stand your trial.
Do come," and I too