"N-n-no, I cannot say I did quite. My wife—that is her mother—told me that she was visiting an aunt in Kent, and I believed it was so."
"But were there no letters, then? Didn't your daughter write to you at times?" persisted the juryman, though the coroner began to fidget and look black.
"Letters!" repeated the Vicar, as if struck with a new idea; "no, I believe not. Yes, I think she did write to her mother—to my wife that is to say. At least I saw the envelope of one letter. I picked it out of the coal scuttle in the breakfast room, but Adelaide—that is my daughter—did not write to me—not that I recollect."
"Humph! I see, 'grey mare the better horse,'" muttered the juryman—a bluff, not unkindly-looking man, and then there fell a moment of deep silence on the Court. The Vicar stood, bearing himself up with his hands on the table before him, and seemed to have more to say. But when after a brief pause, the impatient Coroner ejaculated—"Well, sir! have you done?" the Vicar answered—"Y-yes, I think so. I only wished you not to judge my child hastily," and sat down.
A few moments more and the jury had given their verdict—"the usual one" as the coroner described it—a verdict permitting the corpse to have Christian burial, and all was over. The majority of the jury adjourned to the bar to refresh themselves, and interchange opinions on, what one of them called, "this jolly queer case." The bar-keeper himself joined in the conversation, and Wanless heard him enlarging upon the corruptions of the "Hupper classes," as he followed the Vicar down stairs. But there was no danger that comments of this kind would get into the newspapers. A paragraph about the suicide did, indeed, appear in several morning journals, but there was no mention of the seducer's name. Such a thing as an adjournment to obtain Wiseman's evidence was not even hinted. The coroner, jury, press, and all might have been bought up by the Wiseman family, so discreet was the silence—and, perhaps, some of them were. The press, at all events, was well gagged by an infamous law of libel; and as there had been no sensational or melodramatic incidents connected with the girl's end, it was easy to bury all the story in oblivion—for time. The "gallant" Captain might roll serenely on his way. Nothing could disturb him here except disease and the moral leprosy bred of his crimes. "After death comes the judgment."
When the little gathering had dispersed, the Vicar and Thomas Wanless found themselves alone together. Both had waited to let the unfamiliar faces disappear. Neither had thought at the moment that this shyness would bring them face to face. The peasant was the first to realise the situation, and as he looked at the broken-down old man before him, he was stirred with pity. On the impulse of the moment he went to where Codling stood, and laying his hand on his arm, said—
"Can I be of any use to you, sir?"
The Vicar started and turned hastily away, shaking Thomas's hand from his arm, at the same time answering—"No, no, Thomas Wanless, I have nothing to say to you. You have done me enough mischief for one day!"
"I have done you no mischief, sir. God forbid that I should harm you. Had it been possible I would have saved you this pain,—I would have rescued your daughter."
"Rescued my daughter, would you?" and Codling laughed a low, bitter laugh. "Rescued my daughter! Why cannot you look after your own, Thomas Wanless? I do not want your help."