‘I wanted’—here poor Ella hangs her head—‘to see into the Rectory garden. They—they were all laughing there, and I could hear them, and—’
She stops short in her somewhat dismal confession.
‘I see,’ says Wyndham quickly, all his coldness suddenly dying away. Poor child! this little picture of her climbing with difficulty into that great tree to catch even a glimpse of the gaiety of others goes to his heart. ‘Was it there that—’
‘Yes; it was there I thought I saw him. I may—I must’—anxiously—‘have been mistaken—don’t you think I must have been mistaken?—but I did see a man just like him turning up the corner of the road that leads to the village street.’
‘I am sure you were mistaken,’ says Wyndham. ‘As a fact, I know he has disappeared altogether. If he wanted to spy upon you here, if he thought you were in the country anywhere, what would be more likely than that he should live in his old house, and make expeditions round about Dublin with a view to coming upon you sooner or later? But I have heard from the woman who lived next door to him that—’
‘Mrs. Morgan?’ says Ella eagerly.
‘Yes; Mrs. Morgan.’ He pauses, and is quite conscious of a glow of satisfaction at her words. They are, indeed, ‘confirmation strong’ of the truth of her story all through. She had known this Mrs. Morgan and been known by her. ‘And,’ cries Ella eagerly, ‘she said—’
‘That he had left his house immediately after your disappearance. That looks as if your going had frightened him, as if he thought he might be made answerable to the law for your safety, as if he feared you had—that is—’ He stammers here a little.
‘I know,’ says the girl, interrupting him gently. ‘As if he feared—I had put an end to my life. And’—painfully—‘as you know—I was willing to risk the chance of losing it, at all events.’
‘Oh, there was no risk,’ says Wyndham hastily. ‘But what I want to say is that I believe Moore fancied himself liable to prosecution if he could not say what had become of you. He had treated you abominably, and no doubt the neighbours were talking, and—’ He himself is talking quite at random now. He has not yet got over his late ‘slip.’ ‘Any way, his not being seen since points to the fact that he has gone abroad.’