He spoke with a mixture of seriousness and playfulness that left me in doubt whether he had really noticed anything to suggest that I took a personal interest in Lady Violet’s defence. I was glad to feel that in any case he had no animosity against her. Even if he thought her guilty of Weathered’s death, it was probable that he saw some excuse for the deed.
Nothing more passed between us on the subject till we were in the train for Hereford. During a great part of the journey the consultant sat silent in his corner seat, with his golden pendulum swinging softly in his hand, to the evident astonishment of the solitary passenger who shared our compartment.
I sat opposite him, filled with bitter-sweet reflections and memories that became more intense as we neared the little city on its rushing river beyond the Malvern Hills. How every feature in the landscape recalled the passionate days of yore, when I had made that journey for the first time! Then I had travelled third-class with a knapsack on my back, and the hopes of youth in my heart, on my way to explore the romantic hills and vales of the borderland, the Golden Valley and the untrodden Beacons that looked down on Breconshire. I recalled every step of the way, from the morning on which I had turned my face to the west and tramped out towards the wooded slopes of Blakemere, to the hour when I had encountered in its romantic setting that figure which became for me all that Queen Guinevere had been for Lancelot.
Less than four years had passed since then, and now I was returning to the scene of my wrecked romance, my unforgotten secret agony; returning in official dignity as a representative of the law charged to examine the partner of my secret on a fearful accusation from which perhaps only I could save her, and only at the cost of my own life.
That night I did not sleep. I passed it in wrestling with the problem, as I tossed from side to side on my bed in the hotel where we had put up. But before retiring for the night I had managed to escape from my chief’s observation for a few minutes, just long enough to scribble a brief note and despatch it to Tyberton Castle. It ran:
Be out to-morrow morning when Sir Frank Tarleton arrives. The barn at twelve if possible. Zenobia.
CHAPTER XI
WHAT THE CIPHER MEANT
Tyberton Castle was less than an hour’s drive from Hereford by motor. I had to conceal my knowledge of the neighbourhood from Tarleton, who left the arrangements in my hands, and question the man who waited on us at breakfast as if I were entirely ignorant of where the Castle lay, and how to reach it.
“No breakfast, no man,” was a favourite maxim of the physician’s, and he did full justice to the fresh trout, the kidneys and bacon, and the new-laid eggs put before us, while I had to force myself to swallow a few mouthfuls. However, the meal was over at last, and at ten o’clock we were seated in the car provided by the hotel, speeding along the road I had last trodden backward with despair in my heart.
It seemed to me that every tree was eloquent and that every cottage on the way remembered me, and wondered at my coming back. As we came near the village I was tempted to shrink back in my corner of the car and hide my face, lest the villagers should recognize it and greet me. I had to tell myself that the real test would come presently. I had never crossed the threshold of the Castle; I had never ventured into the park in the daytime; but there is no such thing as privacy on the country-side; every hedge has eyes and ears; and it was certain that my comings and goings had been watched, and that every child on the Earl of Ledbury’s estate and every servant in his house knew more about me than his lordship did.