The table having been laid, and the supper served, Miss Stanbridge partook of her evening meal as if nothing had happened. Her heart was as hard and petrified as the nether millstone.
CHAPTER CLIII.
THE STOKE FERRYMAN.
Tom Gatliffe, as we have already intimated, went direct up to London, after the terrible scene on the cliffs.
He made up his mind to cast off the woman who had, in days gone by, held him in bondage.
Come what would, he was determined never to have anything further to say to her. But his mind was distraught, and every turn he expected to learn that a body had been picked up off Margate.
However, days passed on, and no news received of the ill-fated Alf Purvis; but Tom could not dismiss from his mind the harrowing circumstances connected with the tragedy, and deemed it advisable to keep silent and await patiently the issue. It would be time enough for him to be outspoken when he felt assured that silence would be criminal.
The infamous woman—the perpetrator of the act of atrocity which we have recorded—remained for a few days in Margate after the event, then she, like her companion, returned to the metropolis.
She was quite calm and self-possessed, and did not appear to have any remorse for the past, or fears for the future.
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