“It was that young gypsy girl who took the train at Frosthill at midnight of March 21st,” said Carter, in a low tone.
The doctor stared gravely for a moment, and then inquired:
“How do you know this?”
“Because I was on that very same train, and sat in that very same car along with her.”
“Man! Is this undoubtedly true?” demanded the doctor.
“Well, I will tell you all about it, and then you will see that it is true. I took the train at Westbourne and traveled on until we got to Frosthill, which it reached at midnight, and where it stopped for one minute. Two passengers got on—a young man who looked like a young devil, saving your presence, he had such a dark, scowling, lowering face. He was clothed in a rough overcoat, and had his hands thrust into his pockets, and never offered the least assistance to the young woman, who came creeping and cowering behind him. I couldn’t help but notice them both, and saw at a glance that they were man and wife, and that they had had a row, in which the woman, of course, had come off second best. He looked so wicked and sullen, and she so frightened and broken-hearted. He just threw himself into a seat, and stretched out his legs over the top of another one; and she slunk away into a corner, and turned her face to the wall, and cried fit to break her heart. And he never took any more notice of her than if she had been a dog. I wanted to kick him all around the car. There was plenty of room to do it, too, because there weren’t a half a dozen people in that car, all told. I got out at Snowden, about twenty miles farther on, where I stopped over a day to look at a farm, and I never thought any more about that ruffian husband and gypsy wife until I came here to Frosthill last night, and heard the whole story of the mystery at the Stag. And then I thought I would tell you what I had seen at the Frosthill station, at midnight, on the twenty-first of March,” concluded the visitor.
“I thank you very much. Still, still, there may be ground for a faint hope. How was this girl whom you saw in the man’s company dressed, do you remember?” inquired the doctor, with increased uneasiness.
“Oh, yes; I remember quite well. She was clothed in a red suit, with something dark about her head and shoulders. And Mrs. Hereward was in deep mourning, they say, for her father.”
“Yes, she was,” said the doctor, as the faint hope died away. “And this red suit,” he added, mentally, “was, of course, the very suit that she used to wear before she went in mourning, and which, of course, she must have given to the girl in preference—upon every account of economy and fitness—to giving her a black one.”
While the doctor was turning these hopeless thoughts over in his mind the visitor arose and said: