CHAPTER XVII.
As soon as Nell and her uncle returned to the Blue Lion, they were met by the nurse who was attending Clifford. She said her patient was so anxious to see Miss Claris that she had been obliged reluctantly to give him permission to do so, fearing that he would worry himself into a fever if she refused.
But, much to the nurse’s surprise, Nell was even more reluctant to see him than she herself had been to give her permission to do so. It needed half a dozen earnest messages to persuade her to go to the sick man’s room.
Clifford, who was lying in the little sitting-room, which had been given up to him, gave a long sigh of relief when he saw Nell. She was very pale, and the expression of her face was full of sadness and terror.
“Sit down here, Nell, beside me,” said he in a weak voice, “and tell me why you look like that. I am not going to die. Is that what you are afraid of, dear?”
Nell shook her head, and tried to smile, as she took his hand. A hoarse, rattling sound came from her lips, but no articulate word. Then, meeting his loving eyes, she broke down and burst into a passion of tears. Clifford did just the very best thing possible in the circumstances: he let her cry. Without a word, he sought and found her second hand, placed it with the other in his own left hand, while with his right he gently caressed her golden head. So she cried bitterly for a time, and then less bitterly, until, the pressure of her acute misery relieved, she suddenly sprang back, snatched her hands away, and dried her eyes.
“Now, Nell, do you feel better?” asked Clifford, as a faint smile began to hover on the girl’s face.
“Yes, I do, much better,” answered she in a more self-possessed tone. “Now I can tell you something. My uncle thinks I—I—did it.”
“Shot Jem Stickels?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what on earth is he to think? It is just what I should have thought myself if—”
“If what?”
“If I hadn’t happened to be in love with you.”
Nell stared.
“You don’t mean that, really?”
“Yes, but I do, though. Look here; I got the nurse to pay some one to go to the inquest and report to me. He did, when the jury adjourned for luncheon. And now I’ve just heard of your evidence and the verdict, and I don’t see how anybody, except me, could fail to suspect you. Yes, you.”
Nell, who had been very white, grew crimson as she looked at him.
“You mean—that you suspect me, too? You think me capable of—”
“No, child, of course not. But I think you gave your evidence very badly, and that you therefore can’t expect to be pitied. Now tell me why you didn’t want to come and see me?”
Nell silently hung her head.
“Was it because you didn’t care if you never saw me again?”
Up went the face, radiant with passionate denial.
“Well, was it because you knew I should ask you some questions?”
Down went the face again.
“What was it you wanted to see me about, when you sent for me to come down from town to see you?”
She looked up at him with a face full of terror.
“Ah, that’s it,” she whispered hurriedly. “That is why I didn’t want to see you. I knew you would want to know that. And now—I cannot tell you!”
“Why not?”
“Yesterday,” went on Nell, her voice getting lower, “I was going to ask your advice; for it was only a case of theft. To-day I dare not, for it is now a question of—murder!”
“You know something, Nell!”
“I don’t. I wish I did. But—I suspect. And I dare not whisper my suspicion even to you, until I have felt my way to a little more knowledge. Now will you be content with that, and not want to make me speak when I would rather be silent?”
Clifford hesitated.
“Wouldn’t you trust me to be silent too?”
Nell began to look perplexed and miserable, drawn this way and that by conflicting feelings of love and duty. Clifford saw how keen the struggle was, and like a generous fellow, cut it short for her.
“All right, Nell, you shall keep your secret. Only mind this: I must be the first to know it. Will you promise me that?”
“Yes, oh, yes, and I thank you with all my heart.”
The weight of care sprang up from off the girl’s heart at one bound. The entire trust which Clifford showed in her was just the balm her wounded soul needed; and the hour the nurse allowed her to spend by her lover’s bedside, although it was passed almost in silence after this explanation, was one of happiness and relief so deep that she went out to face the world and her uncle’s suspicion with fresh courage.
Clifford’s wound had proved more serious than was at first supposed. There was risk of inflammation, and the doctors ordered that he was to be kept very quiet. When, therefore, that same evening, Hemming called at the inn, and asked to see Mr. King, he would have been denied altogether if Clifford himself had not heard the inquiry, and recognizing the voice, insisted on seeing the detective.
“Well, and what do you want with me?” asked Clifford, with interest, as Hemming was shown into his tiny room.
“Well, sir, I hear you’ve seen Miss Claris since the inquest,” was the detective’s rather abrupt opening.
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, sir, things look about as black for her as they well can.”
And he gave the young man a shrewd look as he pronounced this statement. Clifford said nothing, and Hemming went on:
“Knowing how you were—were a friend of the young lady, sir, I thought it only right you should know as I am downright certain who was at the bottom both of the murder and the robbery; and I’m only waiting to make the chain of proof a little stronger before making an arrest.”
“Of whom?”
“I leave you to guess, sir. I may tell you I’ve found the pistol”—Clifford started—“and the bullet fits it exactly.”
“Do you want to put any more questions to Miss Claris?” asked Clifford, imperturbably.
“Well, the young lady seemed so unwilling—But, of course, if you think she wouldn’t mind—after all, it’s only a rehearsal like, and I dare say she knows that.”
Now these words, taken with the tone in which they were spoken, were strong tests of the lover’s trust. But Clifford did not flinch. He told Hemming to call the nurse, who was waiting outside the door, and at once sent a message to Nell to ask her to come and see him.
“And don’t tell her,” he went on, with a defiant glance at the detective, “who it is that wishes to see her.”
When Nell came in, therefore, she was taken by surprise. It worried Clifford to note that she turned very white and began to tremble violently when she found who it was that wanted to speak to her. Hemming came to the point at once.
“Do you remember, Miss,” said he, in a very deferential tone, “Colonel Bostal’s taking down an old pistol from a nail in the wall of his house, about a week ago, and showing it to you and some other ladies?”
Yes, Nell remembered. She threw a frightened glance at Clifford as she made this admission.
“Can you tell me who the ladies were?”
“Mrs. Lansdowne and her daughter and Miss Theodora and—and—I!”
“The colonel fired it off, did he not?”
“Yes.”
“And wanted you ladies to do the same?”
“Yes.”
“And did you do so? Please tell me what happened.”
“They were all afraid to touch it.”
“All?”
“All, except—except me.”
Trembling from head to foot, Nell cast an imploring glance at her lover.
“You fired it off two or three times, I believe, Miss? And you hit a mark that you fired at?”
The girl answered almost in a shriek of terror:
“I did not hit it! Who says that I hit it?”
Clifford started up, leaning on his arm. In an instant Nell recovered enough of her self-possession to tell him to lie down again. But her voice shook. Hemming spoke in a very gentle and apologetic tone as he went on with his interrogatory:
“Is this the pistol you used, Miss?”
He produced from one of his pockets the old cavalry pistol which he had brought from Shingle End.
“Yes,” replied Nell, not heeding Clifford’s attempts to bring the examination to an end, “that is the one.”
“Do you remember what happened when you had all seen it, and it was done with?”
“Yes. The colonel reloaded it—”
She stopped short and looked down.
“You are sure that he reloaded it?”
“Yes. He reloaded it, and hung it upon the nail again.”
“Have you ever touched the pistol since?”
“No, no.”
“Has any one else, to your knowledge, touched it since?”
“No.”
“What is all this to lead to?” asked Clifford, impatiently.
“Well, I can’t tell you yet, sir. But the colonel says—and the young lady and Miss Bostal all say the same—that he put the pistol back on its nail, loaded, a week ago; and when I took it down from its nail to-night, it had been discharged. That’s all at present, sir.”
For one minute Hemming waited, expecting to have something said to him by Clifford King or Nell. As they remained silent, he took his leave, with more apologies for his intrusion.
The lovers looked at each other.
“Nell,” asked Clifford in a whisper, when they had been alone and silent for some moments, “is it true that you fired it off?”
“Quite true. Now do you doubt me, too?”
“No. I swear I don’t. But, Nell, my darling, I begin to tremble for you all the same.”
The young man’s voice shook. Nell gazed into his face in an agony of horror.
“If I knew anything, I would tell it, whatever happened,” she cried, suddenly. “It is not fair that I should have to suffer like this!”
Now this speech was perplexing to her listener, but she would give no explanation of it. She only told him that she wanted time to think, to consider. And on the following morning, soon after breakfast, she called the nurse out of the room to ask if she could go in and say good-by to Mr. King.
Clifford stared at her in astonishment. She had on her hat and cloak, and was evidently ready for a journey.
“Didn’t you know that I was going to London yesterday, to my aunt’s?” she asked. “They stopped me, to give evidence at the inquest. So I am going to-day, instead.”
“But—” began Clifford, and hesitated.
“You think it looks bad for me to go away?” said she impatiently. “Well, people must think what they like. If the police want me, I dare say they will be able to find me out,” she added bitterly.
Clifford was shocked.
“Don’t, child, don’t speak like that,” cried he. “I only thought you would be too much interested in this business to go away until they had found out the truth.”
Nell moved restlessly, and looked anxious.
“When will that be?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders. “I might stay here forever if I waited for that!”
Clifford leaned on his elbow and stared at her.
“Nell, do you want them to find it out?” he asked, curiously.
She hesitated. Then, raising her head quickly, she hissed out in a low voice:
“No. I can’t tell you why; I won’t tell you why; but—no, no, no!”
Then she looked at him, her blue eyes filled with imploring tears.
He held out his arms.
“Never mind, Nell. Whatever you tell me, or whatever you choose not to tell, I love you and I trust you just the same.”
“Now,” she whispered, with a sudden change from her rather hard, defiant tone to one full of gentleness and gratitude, “I don’t care what they believe, or what they do to me.”
“You will write to me, Nell? You will let me write to you?” whispered Clifford, as he clung to her.
But, sobbing, shaking with anxiety and grief as she was, Nell was obstinate.
“You may write to me,” she said, “when all this mystery is cleared up. But not before.”
“But, Nell, you said that might be never!” protested Clifford.
“Then you may never write to me,” answered the girl, half suffocated by her sobs, as she tore herself away from him, and ran out of the room.
Her uncle was waiting outside. He was deeply moved, and it was with difficulty that he repressed all outward signs of the struggle between love and suspicion of his niece, as he helped her into the dog-cart. Their drive to the station was as silent as their drive from the town-hall on the preceding day had been. It was not until they had driven up to the door of the railway station that Nell addressed her uncle.
“Uncle George,” she said, in a low, troubled voice, “why can’t you trust me?”
The innkeeper was touched; he was about to answer her with words which would have convinced her that, whatever his suspicions might be, his love for her was as strong as ever, when the sight of a policeman watching them intently froze the words on his lips.
“There’s the reason why I can’t,” answered George Claris, hoarsely. “Look how you are watched, wherever you go. They won’t let you go away, I expect.”
Nell said nothing, but got out of the dog-cart with compressed lips and anxious eyes. Contrary not only to her uncle’s expectations but to her own, however, she was allowed to start on her journey without hindrance. When the train had steamed out of the little station, the innkeeper turned abruptly and defiantly to the policeman.
“Well,” said he, roughly, “what do you want?”
“Nothing at present, Mr. Claris,” answered the man. “When we do want anything, you know, we can always find it.”
Whatever he thought of the truth of this statement, George Claris was prudent enough not to question it.