"I did. You will not be wanted to keep watch any longer. Step down to Minden Cottage and give this note to Miss Brooks." He pulled out a pencil, searched his pockets, found a scrap of paper, and, leaning over the table, scribbled a few lines. "If Miss Brooks has gone to bed, you must knock her up."
"Very good, sir." Constable Jim touched his hat and retired.
"And now what's the matter in there? Come along, you Whitmore. Has he found the licence?"
But this was not what the Rector's cry had announced. The room into which we passed had apparently served Mr. Whitmore for a bed-chamber and private study combined, for a bed stood in the corner, and a bookcase and bureau on either side of the chimneypiece. In the middle of the floor lay an open valise, and all around it a litter of books and clothes, tossed here and there as their owner had dragged them out to make a selection in his packing.
Mr. Rogers uttered a long whistle. "So you were bolting?" He stared around, rubbing his chin, and fastened his eyes again on Whitmore. "Now why to-night?"
"My conscience, Mr. Rogers—"
"Oh, the devil take your conscience! Your conscience seems to have timed matters pretty accurately. Say that your nose smelt a rat. But why to-night?"
I cannot say wherefore; but, as he stared around, a nausea seemed to take the unfortunate man. Perhaps, the excitement of confession over, the cold shadow of the end rose and thrust itself before him. He was, I feel sure, a coward in grain. He swayed and caught at the ledge of the chimneypiece, almost knocking over one of the two candles which burned there.
With that there smote on our ears the sounds of two voices in altercation outside—one a woman's high contralto. Footsteps came bustling through the outer room and there stood on the threshold— Miss Belcher.
She was attired in a low-crowned beaver hat and a riding habit the skirt of which, hitched high in her left hand, disclosed a pair of tall boots cut like hessians. On this hand blazed an enormous diamond. The other, resting on her hip, held a hunting-crop and a pair of gauntleted gloves.