“Why, what’s come to you, child?” she said. “Where have you been? Has anybody frightened you again?”
“No,” said Freda hoarsely. Then, bending forward, she whispered: “My father—have you seen him?”
“Sh-sh!” said Nell, sharply. “Go into the dining-room.”
Freda thought there was a look of anxiety upon the housekeeper’s face, but as it was always useless to try to force Nell’s confidence, she hurried past her into the dining-room without a word. No one was in the room, however. She was on the point of going back to Mrs. Bean when the corner of a note, which had been thrust under the clock, caught her eye. She pulled it out, and found that it was directed, in her father’s handwriting, to “Freda.” She opened it eagerly but not without fear. The note was very short:
“My dearest Child,—I am away for a little while, you can perhaps guess why. As long as I am out of reach, this Thurley (who is, I believe, an honourable man) can do nothing. You need not be anxious on my account, little one. When I can, I shall come back, and carry you straight back to the convent. I ought never to have brought you away, it is the right place for a little saint. I wish I could have been a better father to you, but it is too late. ‘The tree has ta’en the bend.’ Good-bye, child.
“Your affectionate,
“Father.”
Freda sobbed over this; she was surprised to find, among the mingled emotions which the note roused in her, a strong feeling of reluctance to the idea of going back to the convent. The excitement of the strange life she had led since leaving it had spoilt her for the old, calm, passionless existence. What! Never again to leave the shade of those quiet walls? Never to wander, as she now loved to do, about the ruined church of Saint Hilda, whose roofless walls, with their choir of wailing sea-birds, had grown to her ten times more sacred than the little convent-chapel? Never to see her father? Never to see—Dick?
At this thought she broke down, and resting her head upon her hands, let the tears come. And poor Dick had looked half-starved, so John Thurley said! There began to steal into her heart a consciousness that, if things had been different, as it were, and if she had not been brought up in, and for, a convent, as one might say, she too might perhaps, to use John Thurley’s words, “have known what falling in love was.”
She was startled, in the midst of her tears, by the sound of John Thurley’s voice in the hall, outside. He was talking to Nell, asking “the way to Oldcastle Farm.” Freda sprang up in alarm. What if the farm were her father’s hiding-place? It was the probable, the most horrible explanation. The man who had spoken to Thurley that morning was certainly a member of the London police force, and he had said that he was on the murderer’s track. It might be, then, that he had got wind of the fact that the farm was to be Captain Mulgrave’s hiding-place. If not, what did Mr. Thurley want there?
It took Freda only a few minutes, when these thoughts had occurred to her, to make up her mind what she should do. She waited until, by the more distant sound of their voices, she knew that Thurley and Mrs. Bean had retreated into the passage leading to the precincts of the latter; and then ran upstairs to her own room, dressed hastily for walking, and crept out of the house without being seen by any one.
It was Saturday, and market-day at Presterby. Barnabas Ugthorpe would be at market; and Freda, in her short acquaintance with him, had gained enough insight into that gentleman’s tastes and habits to be sure that, instead of making the best of his way home as soon as the business of the day was done, he would at this moment be enjoying himself at the “The Blue Cow,” or “The Green Man,” or one or other of the small hostelries which abutted on the market-place. So it was in this direction that she turned her steps, flitting among the old grave-stones and hopping down the hundred and ninety-eight worn steps, until she reached Church Street.