Clifford was touched. It was only of Nell the poor little lady thought. Then surely Miss Theodora could not have the slightest suspicion that her own father had anything to do with the crimes!
The Colonel, meanwhile, had recovered much of his self-possession.
“Calm yourself, my dear,” he said to his daughter, but in such a hard tone of despair that Clifford began to feel that he was an intruder upon grief so deep. “If Nell is arrested—”
He stopped.
For in the middle of his speech there was a knock at the front door. Miss Theodora, Clifford noticed, drew herself up in an attitude of rigid attention. There was dead silence in the little dining-room, until the knock was repeated louder than before.
“I shall go upstairs,” said Miss Theodora, softly, “and see from the window who it is. But if it is the police, come for my evidence, I will be put in prison rather than give it.”
She had scarcely uttered the words when a third knock was heard at the front door. Miss Bostal glided out of the room and ran upstairs without another word.
Then again there was a pause. The two men looked at each other by the light of the lamp, which gave but a dim illumination through its smoky glass. In the old Colonel’s face Clifford became conscious that there was written a most pitiful history, the history of a life-long shame, of an indelible disgrace. Still only groping towards the truth as he was, the young man stood silent, reverent, wondering what awful thing he was next to learn.
For the fourth time the knock, louder and more imperative than before, echoed through the house. Then the Colonel drew a deep sigh and went slowly towards the door.
“I am sorry you are here,” he said with calm courtesy. “Whatever errand brings these people, and whoever they are, you, being here, will be subjected to some annoying interrogatories. Perhaps there may still be time for you to get out by the garden way before I have to let them in.”