"I do not see how you make that out, mother. He was, and is, entirely dependent on Sir Louis Fellenger for his money; and I want to have nothing to do with the Fellengers. Their family have cost us dear enough already."
This reference to the dead Emma made Mrs. Colmer weep, and Anne had considerable difficulty in quietening her. However, she succeeded in the end, and left her mother to her own thoughts, while she herself went out into the garden for a breath of fresh air. Moreover, she wanted to be alone, for the purpose of thinking over the position of things. Anne could not but recognise that if certain contingencies arose, she and her mother would find themselves very awkwardly placed.
The evening was warm, and the sky was filled with a mellow light, which rendered languid the atmosphere. Against this, the trees stood out in bold relief, every twig and leaf being sharply outlined against the amber sky. The sound of distant laughter, and the musical splash of oars came to the ears of the girl as she walked slowly down the path towards the summerhouse. A low, redbrick wall ran along the bank of the river, and as she leaned over this low parapet, Anne could see some considerable distance to right and left. Before a boating house on the opposite shore a number of people were collected; and every now and then a boat would shoot out into the gleaming waters bearing two or three of them away. Someone musically inclined had brought a banjo, and Anne could hear the thrumming of the string's, and the echo of the latest music-hall ditty. Altogether, the scene was not without its charm; but she was too much taken up with her own troubles to pay much attention to the pleasant picture spread out before her. The quiet of the evening brought no peace to her.
"How foolishly I have acted," she thought, with a shiver. "If I had been wise I would have left these matters alone. I feel certain that Mr. Fanks recognised me as the woman he saw in Tooley's Alley. If he finds me out, he will ask me what I was doing there on the night of the murder. What can I say. I dare not tell him the truth, and he may refuse to believe what I say to him. I acted for the best, it is true, but my good intentions have led me into a position of danger. But I may be wrong--I may be quite safe. That man may never find me. If he does,"--she shivered again, and looked up the river.
Under the glow of the sunset sky, the waters rolled, a broad sheet of gold flecked here and there with the dark forms of boats. To the left Anne saw a skiff containing one oarsman, coming swiftly down the stream. In a half dreamy moment she calculated that he would pass almost immediately under the wall. Then she returned to her self-communings.
"If Ted were only here," she thought. "I should like to tell him all that I have done, and ask him how to act. For his own sake he must keep silent; and for the sake of my mother I must hold my tongue. Oh, it is terrible--terrible to know what I know, and yet remain dumb. And I am afraid of that detective. His eyes seemed to pierce me through on that day. Should he find me out he may compel me to speak. And if I speak--oh, the disgrace and shame of it. Why, why are such things permitted in this world. Oh, Ted! Ted, I wish you were here to comfort me."
She leaned her head on the wall and burst into tears. Anne was not easily moved; and it was an unusual thing for her to thus give way to her emotions. But she was only a girl after all, and her system was strung up and nervously excited by the knowledge of the secret she knew. She would like to have confided in someone, if only to relieve her overburdened mind; but she shrank from the consequences of such a step. A word from her, and the murder in Tooley's Alley--but, no, she put the thought out of her mind, and, still leaning her head on her arms, she wept bitterly.
Meanwhile the single oarsman rowed steadily towards the red brick wall, which was evidently the point for which he was making. Soon he came abreast of it; shortly he came under it, and Anne raised her head at the sound of the splash of oars, to behold the very man of whom she had been thinking. It was Ted Hersham.