“I——Oh, Mr. Faradeane, what am I to do, sir?”
“Answer,” said Faradeane, in a grave, compassionate voice.
“Silence!”
“Well,” with a groan, “I did!”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A GYPSY’S EVIDENCE.
We must leave the court—now adjourned for luncheon—and follow Bartley Bradstone.
He reached home more dead than alive after his fright in the woods, and as he recovered his scattered senses, there flashed upon his remembrance the note inclosing the confession. He would destroy that the first thing, then he would pack his portmanteau, and, obeying Faradeane’s instructions, run over to the Continent.
He thrust one hand into his coat pocket, and drew a candle toward him with the other. Then he fell back, white to the lips, and with an inarticulate cry. The packet had—gone!
He felt in every pocket, though he knew well that he had put it in his overcoat breast-pocket as he stood on the steps of the Grange—shook his coat, unfolded and shook his handkerchief, and examined the room. With quaking limbs he put on his hat, and, scrutinizing every inch of the way, retraced his steps through the house and down the drive, along the road and up the Grange avenue, almost as far as the railings where he had seen the apparition, but not quite so far. Even to recover the fatal letter he could not bring himself to face that awful spot again.
But the letter was nowhere to be seen. Worn out with anxiety, he went back to The Maples and flung himself into a chair. To leave the place with that damning confession of his guilt he knew not where, he felt was an impossibility. A dull kind of despair seized upon him, and held him in complete thrall. He crawled up to bed at last, but not to sleep. All night he tortured himself by imagining the discovery of the confession by some one who would either carry it to the police station or to Olivia. If the person who found it followed the former course, then all was over with him, and flight would be useless. Before he could reach London—now—the telegraph would be in operation, and detectives would be waiting for him at every station. If, on the other hand, it should be carried to Olivia—well, she would, she must send for him, and he would have to face a new phase of the danger.