CHARLES PEACE RETURNS HOME—THE BARRISTER’S STORY.
Charles Peace, after his release from the stable, succeeded in getting out of the neighbourhood without attracting the attention of any officious or inquiring policeman.
Used as he had been throughout his lawless career to dangerous escapes and alternations of fortune, this last adventure appeared to make so deep an impression on him that he was quite unnerved.
This is saying a great deal, seeing that he was a man of so essentially a callous nature that the better instincts of his nature were submerged beneath an amount of guilt and atrocity, which, to a casual observer, would appear to be almost incredible.
He could not fail to acknowledge to himself that he had a desperate struggle and a narrow escape. Had Lady Marvlynn elected to give him into custody he knew perfectly well that the hangman’s halter awaited him, for Lady Batershall knew perfectly well who he was, and she was too truthful by nature to screen him by any false statements.
He did not for a moment doubt that she would have every wish to do so, but it would become an impossibility if he had been sent for trial.
The world would then know that the respectable elderly gentleman in the Evalina-road, who passed as Mr. Thompson, was the murderer of Mr. Dyson, of Banner-cross.
As Peace thought of this he turned pale and trembled for the future.
He looked at this time a most pitiable object—his head throbbed with pain, and in addition to this his legs and shoulders bore upon them many severe bruises, the result of his fall through the conservatory.
He was, however, not much injured by the broken glass, as his antagonist, the stalwart footman, was the first to fall through the roof of the conservatory, nevertheless he was in a most dilapidated condition, and felt dispirited and sick of heart.