"Only to hire a postchaise to go to London, and I'll give you fifteen guineas now, and more when we come there. Only to do that. And in London you would make your fortune."
"Not on my life," he told her. "What you'm done you must see the end of. 'Tes your guilty soul makes you flee. I'll have to tell of this."
"I—I was merely jesting," faltered Sophie, "to see if you would. James—" but he had swung on his heel and left her.
No one molested Sophie, but towards midday Hester put her head in at the bedroom door to inform her, with a hardly restrained gusto, that Dr. Polwhele had come over from Penzance and was going to open the body. Sick to the soul, Sophie put on her outdoor things once more and struck out over the moors, walking blindly to try and get away from the horror that was in her. As she went all the strength of her nature, inherited from the father who could keep up a pose and plan a revenge on an agonized death-bed; the strength, which had concentrated itself during her girlhood on her ambitions, that had then made her love for Crandon, now turned to a deep hatred and rage that seemed to settle, cold and hard, on the very muscles of her body. She knew the hatred, the fierce resentment, that the trapped thing feels against the trapper, and added to it was the shame of a woman whose love has been made a mockery. And if, unacknowledged even to herself, was the pricking feeling that, could she have been spared discovery, she would not deeply have minded being the innocent cause of her own release, who is there with heart so uncomplex as to be in a position to condemn her. . . .
She tramped on and on, and presently found herself out on the St. Annan high-road. The thought of Charles came to her as a point where she could turn for help, for he had been absent all night at a distant part of the parish, ministering to a dying man, but he would surely be back by now; if she were not quick he would already have set off for Troon on hearing the news. Battling against the rain-laden wind, she bent her head and made her way into the village. There little groups of people were standing about, intent, arguing. At sight of her a common feeling animated them, the various little centres of discussion broke, joined together, swept towards her. She had an impression of shaking fists, angry sounds, rude contacts, and the smell of many rain-wet bodies pressing in around her. The panic of crowds seized her, she screamed, and screamed again, not recognizing the voice of Charles Le Petyt answering her as he made his way through the press. He struck the faces away from him right and left, and his blazing passage made men fall back. Putting an arm round Sophie he drew her up the steps of the inn and through the door, which he shut and barred.
"Take me away, Charles, take me away," she moaned, and he, his arms round her dear trembling body, answered:
"I will take you home. You are quite safe with me, Sophie. When we get back you must tell me everything and I will think of a way to help you. Stay here a moment, dear."
He put her in a chair, sent the frightened host for a glass of wine, and ordered a chaise to be got ready at the back. Sophie drank the wine passively, and passively let Charles put her in the chaise. She lay silent against him all the way back to Troon, but once there, in the parlour, her brain cleared, and she told him everything. Charles Le Petyt listened, always keeping his hand tenderly over hers, though when she let him understand what for months she had been to Crandon, his free hand gripped hard on the edge of his chair.
"What am I to do?" she asked when she had made an end.
"Is there no way by which the guilt can be fastened where it belongs—on Crandon?" he asked passionately, and in her distress Sophie sprang up and, walking to the window, hit the shut pane with her hand.