At this moment there was a little disturbance outside. A voice at which the Curate started was audible, asking entrance. “I must see Mr. Wentworth immediately,” this voice said, as the door was partially opened; and then, while his sons both rose to their feet, the Squire himself suddenly entered the room. He looked round upon the assembled company with a glance of shame and grief that went to the Curate’s heart. Then he bowed to the judges, who were looking at him with an uncomfortable sense of his identity, and walked across the room to the bench on which Gerald and Frank were seated together. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” said the Squire, “if I interrupt your proceedings; but I have only this moment arrived in Carlingford, and heard what was going on, and I trust I may be allowed to remain, as my son’s honour is concerned.” Mr. Wentworth scarcely waited for the assent which everybody united in murmuring, but seated himself heavily on the bench, as if glad to sit down anywhere. He suffered Frank to grasp his hand, but scarcely gave it; nor, indeed, did he look, except once, with a bitter momentary glance at the brothers. They were sons a father might well have been proud of, so far as external appearances went; but the Squire’s soul was bitter within him. One was about to abandon all that made life valuable in the eyes of the sober-minded country gentleman. The other—“And I could have sworn by Frank,” the mortified father was saying in his heart. He sat down with a dull dogged composure. He meant to hear it all, and have it proved to him that his favourite son was a villain. No wonder that he was disinclined to respond to any courtesies. He set himself down almost with impatience that the sound of his entrance should have interrupted the narrative, and looked straight in front of him, fixing his eyes on Elsworthy, and taking no notice of the anxious glances of the possible culprit at his side.
“I hadn’t gone above a step or two when I see Mr. Hayles at his door. I said to him, ‘It’s a fine evening,’—as so it was, and the stars shining. ‘My Rosa aint been about your place, has she?’ I says; and he says, ‘No.’ But, gentlemen, I see by the look of his eye as he had more to say. ‘Aint she come home yet?’ says Mr. Hayles—”
“Stop a moment,” said John Brown. “Peter Hayles is outside, I think. If the Rector wishes to preserve any sort of legal form in this inquiry, may I suggest that a conversation repeated is not evidence? Let Elsworthy tell what he knows, and the other can speak for himself.”
“It is essential we should hear the conversation,” said the Rector, “since I believe it was of importance. I believe it is an important link in the evidence—I believe—”
“Mr. Morgan apparently has heard the evidence before,” said the inexorable John Brown.
Here a little commotion arose in the bed of justice. “Hush, hush,” said Dr. Marjoribanks; “the question is, What has the witness got to say of his own knowledge? Go on, Elsworthy; we can’t possibly spend the whole day here. Never mind what Hayles said, unless he communicated something about the girl.”
“He told me as the Miss Hemmings had seen Rosa,” said Elsworthy, slowly; “had seen her at nine, or half after nine—I won’t be sure which—at Mrs. Hadwin’s gate.”
“The Miss Hemmings are outside. Let the Miss Hemmings be called,” said Mr. Proctor, who had a great respect for Mr. Brown’s opinion.
But here Mr. Waters interposed. “The Miss Hemmings will be called presently,” he said; “in the meantime let this witness be heard out; afterwards his evidence will be corroborated. Go on, Elsworthy.”
“The Miss Hemmings had seen my Rosa at Mrs. Hadwin’s gate,” repeated Elsworthy, “a-standing outside, and Mr. Wentworth a-standing inside; there aint more respectable parties in all Carlingford. It was them as saw it, not me. Gentlemen, I went back home. I went out again. I went over all the town a-looking for her. Six o’clock in the morning come, and I had never closed an eye, nor took off my clothes, nor even sat down upon a chair. When it was an hour as I could go to a gentleman’s house and no offence, I went to the place as she was last seen. Me and Mr. Hayles, we went together. The shutters was all shut but on one window, which was Mr. Wentworth’s study. We knocked at the garden-door, and I aint pretending that we didn’t make a noise; and, gentlemen, it wasn’t none of the servants—it was Mr. Wentworth hisself as opened the door.”
There was here a visible sensation among the judges. It was a point that told. As for the Squire, he set his stick firmly before him, and leaned his clasped hands upon it to steady himself. His healthful, ruddy countenance was paling gradually. If it had been an apostle who spoke, he could not have taken in more entirely the bitter tale.
“It was Mr. Wentworth hisself, gentlemen,” said the triumphant witness; “not like a man roused out of his sleep, but dressed and shaved, and his hair brushed, as if it had been ten instead o’ six. It’s well known in Carlingford as he aint an early man; and gentlemen here knows it as well as me. I don’t pretend as I could keep my temper. I give him my mind, gentlemen, being an injured man; but I said as—if he do his duty by her—”
“Softly a moment,” said Mr. Brown. “What had Mr. Wentworth’s aspect at six o’clock in the morning to do with Rosa Elsworthy’s disappearance at nine on
