CHAPTER XIV.
MAY’S STEPMOTHER.
The next time that May saw John Temple was at the adjourned inquest on the death of Elsie Wray. They both then simply repeated their former evidence, and the only fresh witness on the occasion was Mrs. Henderson.
In faltering and broken words the unhappy mother told what she knew to be untrue. Her son had only been out for a very short time on the night of Miss Wray’s death, she said, and he had returned to the house much earlier than usual. He said he had just been down to the stables, and spoke about the horses.
“Did you know of any engagement existing between your son and Miss Wray?” asked the coroner.
“No, I did not,” truthfully replied Mrs. Henderson.
She was then questioned as to the time of Tom Henderson’s return to the house, but, though very nervous, she had carefully prepared her story. If her evidence and the evidence of the groom, Jack Reid, were true, it was impossible that Henderson could have been in the neighborhood of Fern Dene. At all events the jury gave him the benefit of the doubt. They returned a verdict that Elsie Wray had destroyed her own life when in a state of temporary insanity, and though every one in the room believed that this condition of mind had been brought on by the conduct of young Henderson, there were some ready to blame the poor girl for her folly in fixing her affections on a man so superior in rank to herself.
Among these was Mr. Churchill of Woodside, and after the inquest was over, as Henderson was handing his mother into the dog-cart, Mr. Churchill, in passing to seek his own trap, held out his hand to Henderson, and then to Mrs. Henderson, who was trembling visibly. He only said a word or two about the weather, but his manner showed a certain amount of sympathy and kindness which was very welcome to both mother and son.
May Churchill, on the other hand, who was following her father, passed them with downcast eyes. She scarcely, indeed, noticed them. A moment or two before she had had a brief interview with John Temple, and he had slipped a note into her hand, and she was thinking of this note and of his words, and not of the Hendersons.
“I have come to say good-by,” John Temple had said, in a low tone, clasping her hand and leaving the note there at the same time; “this will explain.”