He went downstairs the next morning casting restless, suspicious glances over the balustrade, expecting to see a policeman in the hall; but as the day passed and no one came—no detective, and no message from Olivia—his spirits rose somewhat.
“I may have dropped it as I stood leaning against the railing; it must have come out with my handkerchief when I saw——” He stopped with a shudder. “Perhaps luck is going to stand by me still, and the cursed thing has been blown into the wood and is hidden under the bracken. If so”—he got up with renewed energy—“if so, let it lie there until after the trial, after I come back. He will be put out of the way then!”
This view of the case was so encouraging that he dwelt on it, repeating it over and over again, and then went upstairs and secretly began to make preparations for his departure. He prepared the way by reading one of his letters, while the butler was in the room, and uttering exclamations of impatience and annoyance.
“Tut, tut! I shall have to go to town, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the butler, as he removed the untouched breakfast.
“Yes. But I’m not certain. Let me see, what are the trains?”
“There’s the one at midday—you have just lost the morning one, sir—and the evening train.”
Bartley Bradstone thought rapidly. It was just possible that even now, or later in the morning, some one might pick up the letter and take it to Olivia, and he might hear from her. He would wait until the evening train.
He passed the day going over his papers and letters, destroying some and placing the others in the safe. He had not opened it since the wedding day, on which he had taken out the revolver, and he stood before it, looking into its depths with a dull apathy. It was difficult to realize that he—Bartley Bradstone—was—a murderer; that but for the noble heroism and self-sacrifice of the man he hated most in the world, he would at that moment be in the cell, instead of Faradeane, awaiting his trial!
He had been a cunning, an unscrupulous man, an adventurer who had never hesitated at any mean or base action, so long as it was just within the law; who had never hesitated to secure or push an unfair advantage, at whatever cost to others. But murder! With a shudder he shut the safe to, as if he would shut out all remembrance of his crime.