As Harriet Routh drove back to Amherst, she leaned her head wearily against the uncongenial woodwork of the fly, and summed up the results of her journey.
"Whatever the mother knows, the old woman knows. The old woman is as staunch as steel, and she will conceal her suspicions all the more tenaciously, the stronger they are; and I have strengthened them. What a clever old woman she is, and how brave! If my purpose had been what she suspected, I should have had some real difficulty in getting the information I required. It is clear that nothing is to be feared now, in this direction. Mrs. Brookes will never speak. Mrs. Carruthers is in the best possible condition for our purposes, and her son has no pretext for returning to Poynings, even if the death of the tailor had not made it quite safe for him to do so."
She did not look out upon the fair scene through which she was passing. To her, all beauty of nature was a dead thing; she had no heart-throbs of exultation in "the pomp that fills the summer-circuit of the hills;" no sense of its serene loveliness reached her busy brain, or tempted her troubled brooding eyes. When she occasionally lifted them, in shifting her position, they might have been blind for any knowledge of the sunshine or the greenery that was in them. "I will write to him," she went on in her thoughts, "just what she told me to say. Poor George! It is hard to have to make him believe that he has broken his mother's heart, and turned his mother's brain. He does not deserve it, fool as he is. He is easily persuaded, fortunately. I don't feel fit for much that is not easy, now.--The letter must be sent on at once, and, if I do my part well, and this woman dies, or remains abroad--and I fancy Mr. Carruthers is not the man to bring an imbecile wife back, if he can help it--there's no reason why George should come to England again for years, that I can see."
The driver of the fly pulled up for a minute, and letting down one of the front windows, inquired whether he was to go to the inn or to the railway station. While Harriet was answering his question by desiring him to drive to the station, and looking out of the window, a young girl on horseback, a large black Newfoundland dog galloping by her horse's side, passed the fly. The driver touched his hat respectfully, and the young lady acknowledged the salute with her whip.
"That's Miss Carruthers, ma'am," said the man to Harriet, giving her the information in a manner which duly indicated the local importance of Miss Carruthers. Harriet looked back at the girl, and noted the golden gleam of her beautiful hair, the easy swaying of her graceful figure, the air of youth and refinement which characterized her.
"That's Miss Carruthers, is it?" she thought. "George has never seen her, I fancy, as he never mentioned her to me."
She had some time to wait for the train, and she went into the waiting-room. But she found it already occupied by some cheery, chatty women and children, returning from a holiday excursion. Their idle talk, their careless laughter, jarred with her mood; the children looked askance at her, and hushed their prattle; the women drew close together on the hard high leather bench which lined the room, a solemn mockery of a divan, and moderated their tones to a prim gentility. Harriet perceived the effect her presence produced, smiled slowly, and went out again upon the platform, which she paced from end to end, until the train came up, listening idly to the raised voices and renewed laughter which reached her through the open door.
When all the other passengers had taken their places, Harriet got into a carriage which had no other occupant, and so travelled up to London alone.
Routh was in the house when she reached the Tavistock, and was surprised at her speedy return. She told him how the intelligence she had heard on her arrival at Amherst had simplified her task of investigation. She made her narrative as brief as possible, she spoke in a cold measured voice which had become habitual to her, and which filled Routh with intense concealed irritation; and she never looked at him until she had concluded.
"I'll post the letter from the old fellow at once then," said Routh; "it's only a couple of days late, and Dallas is too careless to notice that. When you write--you'd better not do it for a day or so, lest he might take it into his head to suspect you of a motive--you can tell him about our move."