“And then we should lose him.”
“That is exactly what I wish to avoid. I want to bring up my forces at once, and have him laid hold of at once for the forgery of those letters of Edward’s. How long would it take to hear from Ekaterinburg? I suppose Edward could travel as fast as a letter.”
Alison fairly sprang to her feet.
“O, Colin, Colin! you do not think that Edward would be here by the next sessions.”
“He ought,” said Colin. “I hope to induce Dr. Long and Harry to write him such letters as to bring him home at once.”
Self-restrained Alison was fairly overcome. She stretched out both hands, pressed Colin’s convulsively, then turned away her face, and, bursting into tears, ran out of the room.
“Poor dear Ailie,” said Ermine; “she has suffered terribly. Her heart is full of Edward. Oh, I hope he will come.”
“He must. He cannot be so senseless as to stay away.”
“There is that unfortunate promise to his wife; and I fear that he is become so much estranged from English ways that he will hardly care to set himself straight here, after the pain that the universal suspicion gave him.”
“He cannot but care. For the sake of all he must care,” vehemently repeated Colin, with the punctilious honour of the nobly-born soldier. “For his child’s sake, this would be enough to bring him from his grave. If he refused to return to the investigation, it would be almost enough to make me doubt him.”