"I see that, Stewart, but I also see that he will now have a tenfold interest in finding out the truth. Hitherto he might have been content with clearing himself of suspicion, but now he will be the one person most deeply interested in discovering the truth."
"But how can he discover it?" said Routh: his face darkened, and he dropped his voice still lower. "Harriet, have you forgotten that if there be danger from him, there is also the means of turning that danger on himself? Have you forgotten that I can direct suspicion against him tenfold stronger than any that can arise against me?"
She shivered, and closed her eyes again. "No, I have not forgotten," she said; "but oh, Stewart, it is an awful thing to contemplate--a horrible expedient."
"Yet you arranged it with a good deal of composure, and said very little about its being horrible at the time," said Routh, coarsely. "I hope you are not going to be afflicted with misplaced and ill-timed scruples now. It's rather late in the day, you know, and you'll have to choose, in that case, between Dallas and me."
She made him no answer.
"The thing is just this," he continued: "Dallas cannot come to any serious grief, I am convinced; but, if the occasion arises, he must be let come to whatever grief there may be--a trial and an acquittal at the worst. The tailor's death, and his mother's recovery, will tell in his favour, though I've no doubt he will supply all the information Evans would have given, of his own accord. I think there is no real risk; but, Harriet, much, very much, depends on you."
"On me, Stewart! How?"
"In this way. When Dallas comes to see you, you must find out whether any other clue to the truth exists; if not, there is time before us. You must keep up the best relations with him, and find out all he is doing. Is it not very odd that he has not mentioned his uncle's solicitude about his son to you?"
"I don't think so, Stewart. I feel instinctively that Mr. Felton dislikes and distrusts us (what well-founded dislike and distrust it was!" she thought, mournfully, with a faint pity for the unconscious father)--"and George knows it, I am sure, and will not talk to me about his uncle's affairs. He is right there; there is delicacy of feeling in George Dallas."
"You seem to understand every turn in his disposition," said Routh, with a sneer.