“You will write to me, Nell? You will let me write to you?” whispered Clifford, as he clung to her.
But, sobbing, shaking with anxiety and grief as she was, Nell was obstinate.
“You may write to me,” she said, “when all this mystery is cleared up. But not before.”
“But, Nell, you said that might be never!” protested Clifford.
“Then you may never write to me,” answered the girl, half suffocated by her sobs, as she tore herself away from him, and ran out of the room.
Her uncle was waiting outside. He was deeply moved, and it was with difficulty that he repressed all outward signs of the struggle between love and suspicion of his niece, as he helped her into the dog-cart. Their drive to the station was as silent as their drive from the town-hall on the preceding day had been. It was not until they had driven up to the door of the railway station that Nell addressed her uncle.
“Uncle George,” she said, in a low, troubled voice, “why can’t you trust me?”
The innkeeper was touched; he was about to answer her with words which would have convinced her that, whatever his suspicions might be, his love for her was as strong as ever, when the sight of a policeman watching them intently froze the words on his lips.
“There’s the reason why I can’t,” answered George Claris, hoarsely. “Look how you are watched, wherever you go. They won’t let you go away, I expect.”
Nell said nothing, but got out of the dog-cart with compressed lips and anxious eyes. Contrary not only to her uncle’s expectations but to her own, however, she was allowed to start on her journey without hindrance. When the train had steamed out of the little station, the innkeeper turned abruptly and defiantly to the policeman.