“Oh, Miss Grace,” said Jael, “don't you envy me. Go away with him from this wicked, murdering place. That will be a deal better than any thing I can do for him.”
“Ah, would to Heaven I could this minute!” said Grace, clinging tenderly to his shoulder. She insisted on going home with him and sharing his peril for once.
Hill was locked up for the night.
In the morning a paper was slipped into his hand. “Say there was no arrow.”
He took this hint, and said that he was innocent as a babe of any harm. He had got a bow to repair for a friend, and he went home twanging it, was attacked by a woman, and, in his confusion, struck her once, but did not repeat the blow.
Per contra, Jael Dence distinctly swore there was an arrow, with two white feathers and one black one, and that the prisoner was shooting at Mr. Little. She also swore that she had seen him colloguing with another man, who had been concerned in a former attempt on Mr. Little, and captured, but had escaped from Raby Hall.
On this the magistrate declined to discharge the prisoner; but, as no arrow could be found at present, admitted him to bail, two securities fifty pounds each, which was an indirect way of imprisoning him until the Assizes.
This attempt, though unsuccessful in one way, was very effective in another. It shook Henry Little terribly; and the effect was enhanced by an anonymous letter he received, reminding him there were plenty of noiseless weapons. Brinsley had been shot twice, and no sound heard. “When your time comes, you'll never know what hurt you.” The sense of a noiseless assassin eternally dogging him preyed on Little's mind and spirits, and at last this life on the brink of the grave became so intolerable that he resolved to leave Hillsborough, but not alone.
He called on Grace Carden, pale and agitated.
“Grace,” said he, “do you really love me?”