“I think it is you who have been leading me astray,” said Gerard, half grave, half gay. “I never felt so far from my work-a-day self in my life. You have a great deal to answer for, Miss Clare.”
Celia blushed at the charge, but did not reply to it. She turned and surveyed the ground over which they had travelled.
“I can’t see Edward anywhere,” she exclaimed.
“Do you know, I have an idea that he left us about an hour ago,” said Gerard.
“What a ridiculous young man! And now he will be home ever so long before us, and make capital out of his punctuality with my father.
“Could you imagine him capable of such meanness?”
“He is a brother,” answered Celia, “and in that capacity capable of anything. Come along, pray, Mr. Gerard. We must scamper home awfully fast.”
“Won’t you take my arm?” asked Gerard.
“Walk arm in arm over the moor! That would be too ridiculous,” exclaimed Celia, tripping on lightly over hillock and hollow. “Do make haste, Mr. Gerard, or we shall be lost in the darkness.”
George Gerard thought it would be rather nice to be benighted on the moor with Celia, or at any rate to go astray for an hour or so and lengthen their ramble, Happily, however, the lights of the village, glimmering in the valley below, were a safe guide to their footsteps, and Celia knew the pathway that descended the moor as well as she knew her father’s garden. The only peril was the risk of getting into some boggy patch of the common at the bottom of the moor, and even here Celia’s knowledge availed to keep them out of mischief. They arrived at the Vicarage breathless, with glowing cheeks, just in time to make a hurried toilet for dinner.
Oh, how much too short that winter evening, though one of the longest in the year, seemed to George Gerard! And yet its pleasures were of the simplest. Three of Celia’s particular friends—the one eligible youth of Hazlehurst and his two sisters—dropped in to spend the evening, and the Vicarage drawing-room resounded with youthful voices and youthful laughter. Celia and the two young ladies played and sang; and though neither playing nor singing was above the average young lady power, the voices were tuneful and fresh, and the fingers were equal to doing justice to a German waltz. The eligible young man was capable of joining in a glee, and George Gerard consented to try the bass part, and proved himself the possessor of a fine bass voice and a correct ear, so they asked each other, “Who would o’er the downs so free?” and they requested everyone to “See our oars with feathered spray,” and they made valorous attempts at Bishop’s famous “Stay, pr’ythee, stay,” in which they did not break down more than fifteen times, and they altogether enjoyed themselves immensely, while the Vicar read John Bull and the Guardian from end to end, and good Mrs. Clare nodded comfortably over a crochet comforter, giving her ivory hook a vague dig into the woolly mass every now and then, with an idea that she was working diligently.
Edward sat aloof reading Browning’s Paracelsus, and hardly understanding a word he read. His mind was full of perplexity, and darkest thoughts were brooding there.
Thus the evening ran its course, till the appearance of a tray of sandwiches and a tankard of claret negus warned the revellers that it was time to disperse. The church clock chimed the half-hour after eleven as George Gerard went up to his room.
“And tomorrow night I shall be alone in my Cibber Street parlour,” he said to himself, “and I may never see Celia Clare again. Better so, perhaps. What should a piece of pretty frivolity like that have to do in so hard a life as mine?”
XXXV
On a Voyage of Discovery
After pitching and tossing all night in a manner painfully suggestive of shipwreck, John Treverton and his faithful solicitor arrived at St. Malo early in the afternoon, where the comforts and luxuries of that most comfortable hotel, the Franklin, were peculiarly grateful after their cold and dreary passage.
There was no train to carry them to Auray that afternoon, so they dined snugly by a glorious wood fire in a private sitting-room, and discussed the difficulties and dangers of John Treverton’s position over a bottle of Chambertin with the true violet bouquet.
Throughout this long conversation, Tom Sampson showed himself as shrewd as he was devoted. He seized the salient points of the case; fully measured all its difficulties; saw that sooner or later John Treverton might be arrested on suspicion of his wife’s murder, and would have to prove himself innocent. Sampson, as well as Treverton, had seen how much malice there was in Edward Clare’s mind, and both foresaw the probability of that malice being pushed still further.
“If we could only prove that your first marriage was invalid, we should get rid at once of any motive on your part for the murder,” said Sampson.
“You could not prove that I knew my first marriage to be invalid,” answered Treverton, “unless you are going to try to prove a lie.”
“I don’t know what I might not try to do, if your neck were in danger,” retorted Sampson. “I shouldn’t stick at trifles, you may depend upon it. The grand thing will be to find out if there was a previous marriage. After your story about the sailor at the Morgue, I am inclined to hope for success.”
“Are you? Poor Sampson! I strongly suspect we are going in search of a mare’s nest.”
They left St. Malo next morning, and arrived at Auray early in the afternoon. They were jolted down a long boulevard from the station to the town in an omnibus,
