The coachman touched his hat and drove off. Roland Dorrien followed the turnkey to the cell appointed to him. He needed nothing for the present, he said, and so that vigilant guardian, closing the door on him, retired, having respectfully hoped and trusted that he would soon be able to clear himself, as, of course, he easily could.
Clear himself? Not he. This was the fate awaiting him, and from it there would be no escape. The wraith on The Skegs had never been known to appear in vain.
Here for the first time he dared to think—here, where no eye was upon him. Yesterday, love, happiness, peace—to-day, this! Yesterday, powerful, wealthy, free—the envied of all; to-day, not the meanest loafer in Battisford market-place would change with him. Ah, good God! why had he escaped by a hairsbreadth, as it were, from the deadliest of perils that night on the seashore! Was it for this? Better a thousand times that the wild waves had been his grave—both their graves then. And the cold walls of his stone cell echoed such an anguished and despairing groan as is seldom wrung from the breast of mortal man.
It was not until late in the day that Olive awoke. Quickwitted Sophie had not been deceived by her brother-in-law’s assumed coolness, and though absolutely in the dark as to the real facts, she could not help fearing that something had gone very wrong. As the day wore on, and he did not come, this feeling increased, and when at length the brougham returned, it was with a feeling of vast relief that she ran to the door. But it contained only her father.
It happened that when, in pursuance of his orders, Watts called at the Rectory, the old priest had just started on his rounds, and was not to be found anywhere. There was a great deal of sickness in Wandsborough at the time, and no one could say exactly where he was. As a matter of fact he had been called over to Minchkil Bay to attend the dying bed of one of the old seafarers. But the coachman’s orders were positive. He was to wait for him, and wait he did, and so it was not until late in the afternoon that the brougham started to return to Cranston.
All used as he was to strange and startling revelations, the rector could not repress a start of astonishment as he rapidly scanned the contents of the note which old Watts handed to him. But his normal calm soon returned, and, entering the carriage there and then, he was driven rapidly away to Cranston.
There was time in the interval to think over the situation, but he was grateful for every moment of it. His unfortunate friend was called upon to satisfy human justice after all, and he, Dr Ingelow, was required to break the terrible news to his daughter. Yet it might be the barest suspicion—two years and a half was a long time. It would be difficult to convict. But then the prosecution must be in possession of very strong evidence indeed to move it to such a step as the arrest of a man of Roland Dorrien’s status.
In all his experience—large as it was—the rector could not call to mind a more painful case. What frightful ruin the conviction of this man would entail! How much better, for every reason, that the terrible secret should remain buried—a turned-down page of the past! Thus musing, he arrived at Cranston.
“Oh, father. What has gone wrong?” cried Sophie affrightedly, reading the worst in his grave face.
Enjoining silence, her father took her apart, and in a few words communicated the fact of the arrest. The whole countryside would be ringing with it by then, and it was just as well that those most concerned should learn it at first-hand. The girl, though very shocked and awed, was quite self-possessed. Her first thought was for her sister.