CHAPTER V.
To bring a woman into focus, by means even of a scandal, has always been a sure way to bring upon her more than her fair share of the admiration of the other sex. When, therefore, the object of public attention is gifted with unusual attractions of person and manner, the havoc she makes in susceptible masculine hearts is proportionately great.
Clifford was not a particularly weak man, and he would have scorned, a week ago, the idea that he could love a woman the more for being under suspicion of theft. But it is incontestable, for all that, that the stronger the suspicious circumstances grew which hedged her round, the stronger also became his own feelings of tender interest.
If she were not the thief, then who could it have been? And if it were indeed she who had taken his watch and money, and dropped or thrown away the former on her way between Shingle End and the Blue Lion, what was the cause which had prompted the act?
The case for somnambulism still seemed strong to Clifford, for this would have accounted for the frightened look of half-remembrance which he had seen more than once in her face, when the theft was being discussed.
On the other hand, she had certainly been wide awake when he saw her start for Shingle End across the fields that morning, at the very time when she must have been carrying the watch.
And if not somnambulism, then what other motive could there be for this yielding to a horrible temptation on the part of a beautiful, amiable and apparently candid and good girl? Was she the victim to that doubtful disease invented to afford magistrates an excuse for discharging well-connected thieves “of superior education?” Was she, in fact, a “kleptomaniac?”
Or, again: Were the difficulties of her uncle not over, as she had represented them to be, and was she the victim of a misguided determination to clear them away, even at the sacrifice of her honesty?
Each supposition seemed to Clifford more improbable than the last; and when, after compensating Jem Stickels for his roll in the mud by throwing him a half-crown which had been left in his pocket untouched by the midnight thief, he caught sight of Nell on the opposite bank of the river, he was again ready to throw his doubts to the winds.
There was always a boat moored to each side of the river at this point, so Clifford ran down to the water’s edge, and punted himself across.