Time passed, and even the limits of patience that he had set himself were too great for Yeoland of Godleigh. Now he was rich, and hated Australia with a deep hatred. He returned home therefore, and those events related had fallen almost act for act as Endicott declared. In the flesh had the man haunted Godleigh. Once a keeper nearly captured him upon his own preserves; once, during the past spring, he had crept to the great beech tree, impelled thither at the same hour and moment as his old sweetheart. Her collapse had frightened him out of his senses, and, on seeing Stapledon approaching, he had retreated, concealed himself, and, upon their departure, returned to his hidden horse. Deeply perturbed, but ignorant of all that the incident really signified, he had ridden back that night to Exeter, and so departed to the Continent, there to dwell unrecognised a while longer, and wait, half in hope, half in fear, that Honor might proclaim him.
But no sound reached his ear, and of Little Silver news neither he nor Courteney Clack had learnt anything of note for many weeks. Now, however, with only two months between himself and his return to Godleigh, Christopher Yeoland felt the grand imposture must be blown away. It had at least served his purpose.
Thus spoke Clack; then his own curiosity was satisfied, and he learned how, by the lawless operation of obscure men, that secret hidden in the churchyard had become known, and how, upon the confession of one conspirator, three others beside the two discoverers had come to hear of it.
"And as for that terrible thing—the child killed by him accidentally—my child—" said Stapledon without emotion, "little use tearing a tender-hearted creature with that to no purpose. I do not want him to know it."
"I won't tell him, you may be sure," answered the doctor, still in a dream before this unexpected discounting of his great intelligence. "He will not hear of it from me. But know he must sooner or later. That can't be spared him. Only a question of time and some blurted speech."
"I'll tell him, then," declared Myles. "There's nobody more fitting. I don't forget."
The question next arose as to how Little Silver should be informed, and Mr. Endicott declared that the vicar must make a formal announcement after morning service on the following Sunday. Then, with further conversation upon minor points, Doctor Clack's great confession ended; while as for the matter of the desecration, he held with Mr. Endicott that no notice need be taken beyond, perhaps, warning Mr. Cramphorn that his egregious enterprise was known, and that his own safety rested in silence.
The doctor stopped a few days at Endicott's; saw Honor, who heard him with deep interest and decreasing fear; then wrote at length to Christopher in London; but, not caring to face the publication of Yeoland's existence and pending return, Clack finally took himself off until the sensation was on the wane. Before he set out, Myles had a private conversation with him in nature comforting enough, for, concerning Honor, the medical man gave it as his professional opinion that this counter-shock would serve adequately to combat her former hopeless, nerveless condition. The truth, despite its startling nature, must bring wide relief from spiritual terrors, and so probably participate in and hasten the business of recovery.
Then came the thunder-clap, whose echoes reverberated in journals even to the great metropolitan heart of things, and Christopher Yeoland achieved a notoriety that was painful to him beyond power of words to express. Only one gleam of satisfaction shone through all the notes and comments and unnumbered reasons for his conduct: not one came nearer the truth than the utterance of a West Country journalist, who knew the history of the Yeoland family, and opined that a touch of hereditary eccentricity was responsible for all.
Of Little Silver, its comments, theories, bewilderment, and general suspicion that there must be something rotten at the roots of the world while such deeds could be, there appears no need to discourse. How Ash and his kind reviewed the matter, or with what picturesque force it appealed to Noah Brimblecombe, janitor of the mausoleum, may easily be imagined; while for the rest it would be specially interesting, if pertinent, to describe the emotions of Jonah Cramphorn. Relief and disappointment mingled in his mind; he had made no history after all; he was not the mainspring of this commotion, and when he nodded darkly and showed no surprise, folks merely held him too conceited to display honest amazement like everybody else, and laughed at his assumption of secret knowledge. There came a night, however, when Mr. Endicott spoke with him in private, after which Jonah desired nothing more than silence for himself, and poured his pent-up chagrin and annoyance upon Charity Grepe, who—poor soul—derived little lustre from this resurrection.