So Waring would naturally wish to gain time, at whatever
cost. There were evidently circumstances connecting Waring with the
crime; there were none at all, known to the outer world, connecting
the eminent lawyer. Therefore, the eminent lawyer argued to himself,
as coolly almost as if it had been somebody else's case, not his
own, he was conducting--therefore, if an immediate means of escape
is provided for Waring, Waring will almost undoubtedly fall blindfold
into it.
Not that he meant to let Guy pay the penalty in the end for his own
rash crime. He was no hardened villain. He had still a conscience.
If the worst came to the worst, he said to himself, he would tell
all, openly, rather than let an innocent man suffer. But, like every
one else, in accordance with his own inference from his observation
of others, he, too, wanted to gain time, anyhow; and if he could
but gain time by kindly helping Guy to escape for the present,
why, he would gladly do so. An innocent man may be suspected for
the moment, Gilbert Gildersleeve thought to himself, with a lawyer's
blind confidence; but under our English law he need never at least
fear that the suspicion will be permanent. For lawyers repeat
their own incredible commonplaces about the absolute perfection of
English law so often that at last, by a sort of retributive nemesis,
they really almost come to believe them.
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