“No, sir. Meg, my uncle’s servant, and I found it on the mat at the foot of the stairs. And that is really all I have to tell, sir,” said Nell, with an air of relief at having finished the odious recital.
“Well, that is enough for our purpose, fortunately,” said Sir Neville, as he rose to ring the bell. “And now you must come into the drawing-room and let Lady Neville give you a glass of wine. You are a little bit of a heroine, although you have certainly not done much to facilitate the course of justice,” he wound up, with a dignified shake of the head.
But Nell refused to go to be shown off in the drawing-room, refused even to have a glass of wine or a cup of tea brought to her in the study before she went. She was white, trembling, miserable. But she felt that she wanted to be alone, to cry her eyes out at the terrible fact that she had been forced at last to assist the justice which she would have diverted from the criminal if she could. One question, however, she had to put in her turn before she left the presence of the magistrate.
“They will bring it in that she was mad, of course, will they not?” she asked, anxiously, but with an attempt to appear quite sure of his answer.
Sir Neville’s answer was not reassuring, and the look which accompanied it was still less so.
“That is a matter for after consideration.”
Nell walked to the door with staggering feet. Miss Theodora a murderess! In danger of penal servitude, if not of hanging! The thought was too overwhelmingly horrible.
Nell tottered to the cab and was driven back to her lodging at Courtstairs in an almost fainting condition, a few minutes before the police-sergeant who had been her escort to Sir Neville’s started for Shingle End with a warrant for Miss Bostal’s apprehension.
CHAPTER XXIII.
It was the police-sergeant who had taken Nell Claris to Sir Neville Bax who had brought to Shingle End the warrant for Miss Bostal’s arrest. This warrant he had not, so far, had an opportunity of showing to the Colonel. Now, however, that the lady had disappeared, and it had become necessary to search the place, and more thoroughly, the sergeant respectfully turned to the old gentleman, to inform the latter of the authority by which he acted.