Robert Ablett Quotes

“Funny thing that about Mr. Mark’s brother. Fancy not seeing your brother for fifteen years.”

“Well, he may have been in Australia,” said Mrs. Stevens, judicially; “I can’t say for that, not knowing the country; but what I do say is he’s never been here. Not while I’ve been here, and that’s five years.”

“I can take my oath he’s not set foot in the house since five years Whitsuntide. And if he’s been in Australia, as you say, well, I daresay he’s had his reasons.”

She told her aunt afterwards that she would have known him anywhere for Mr. Mark’s brother, but she would have said that in any event. Actually she was surprised.

Dapper little Mark, with his neat pointed beard and his carefully curled moustache; with his quick-darting eyes, always moving from one to the other of any company he was in, to register one more smile to his credit when he had said a good thing, one more expectant look when he was only waiting his turn to say it; he was a very different man from this rough-looking, ill-dressed colonial, staring at her so loweringly.

“I want to see Mr. Mark Ablett,” he growled. It sounded almost like a threat.

“What d’you call this place, eh?” “The office, sir.” “The office?” “The room where the master works, sir.” “Works, eh? That’s new. Didn’t know he’d ever done a stroke of work in his life.”

Well! Here was something to tell auntie! Her mind was busy at once, going over all the things which he had said to her and she had said to him—quiet-like.

“All I knew was that one didn’t ask questions about him.”

“Who is it?” said Antony. “Robert Ablett.” “Oh!” said Antony. “I thought his name was Mark,” he added, more to himself than to the other. “Yes, Mark Ablett lives here. Robert is his brother.” He shuddered, and said, “I was afraid it was Mark.” “Was Mark in the room too?” “Yes,” said Cayley absently. Then, as if resenting suddenly these questions from a stranger, “Who are you?”

“Did you know him well?” said Antony quietly. He meant, “Were you fond of him?”

“Mark Ablett never talked about him?” “Hardly ever. He was very much ashamed of him, and—well, very glad he was in Australia.”

“They’d never liked each other as boys. There was never any affection between them. I don’t know whose fault it was in the first place—if anybody’s.”

“Everyone is very unkind to me,” said Elsie between sniffs, “and there’s that poor man lying dead there, and sorry they’d have been, if it had been me, to have spoken to me as they have done this day.”

Robert is a stranger; Mark is an intimate friend. Robert has written a letter that morning, the letter of a man in a dangerous temper. Robert is the tough customer; Mark the highly civilized gentleman. If there has been a quarrel, it is Robert who has shot Mark.

He knew nothing about Mark; he knew nothing about Robert. He had seen the dead man before he was told who the dead man was. He knew that a tragedy had happened before he knew that anybody was missing. Those first impressions, which are so vitally important, had been received solely on the merits of the case; they were founded on the evidence of his senses, not on the evidence of his emotions or of other people’s senses.

“Good Cayley. Faithful Cayley! Mark’s courage comes back. Cayley will explain all right. Cayley will tell the servants that it was an accident. He will ring up the police. Nobody will suspect Cayley—Cayley has no quarrel with Robert.”

I mean he may have been so full of his appearance as Robert that he had almost got to believe in Robert, and had to tell everybody.