“But, father, John Thurley may still be about. He wanted to take me away to London this afternoon, and I came down here to be safe. Perhaps——”
“Never mind him. He shan’t take you anywhere unless you want to go. Come with me.”
Surprised by the tone he took, which was not that of a hunted man, Freda followed her father in silence along the underground passage, and up the steps into the ruined church. Captain Mulgrave then helped his daughter up the broken steps which led to the window in the west front, and they sat down on the old stones and looked out to the sea. A conviction which had been growing in Freda’s mind as they came along, brightening her eyes and making her heart beat wildly, became stronger than ever when he deliberately chose this spot, in full view of any one who might stroll through the ruins. It was a grey, cold day, with a drizzle of rain falling; the sea was all shades of murky green and brown, with little crests of foam appearing and disappearing; the sea-birds flew in and out restlessly about the worn grey arches, screaming and flapping their wide wings; the wind blew keen and straight from the northwest, but Freda did not know that she was bitterly cold, and that her lips and fingers were blue, for her heart and her head were on fire.
“Father,” she whispered, crouching near him and looking into his face, “forgive me for what I thought. Oh, I see it was not true, and I could die of joy!”
She was shaking from head to foot, panting with excitement. Captain Mulgrave looked affectionately into her glowing face.
“Why, child,” he said, “there wasn’t a man or woman in England who wouldn’t have condemned me! Why should you blame yourself. When Barnabas Ugthorpe caught me, as he thought, red-handed, I saw that nothing but a miracle could save my neck; if I lived, it was sure to leak out. So I died. And they buried the murdered man instead of me.”
“But father, the jury—were they all in the secret!”
“No. They viewed a live body instead of a dead one. I had a beautifully painted wound on my breast, and I lay in the coffin till I was as cold as the dead; and I took care that the jury shouldn’t be warm enough to want to hang about long, or to have much sensitiveness of touch left if they were inclined to be curious.”
“But, father, wouldn’t it have been less risk just to go away?”
“No, for my disappearance would have told against me at the inevitable time, when Barnabas should babble out his secret. I thought, too, that my supposed death would put the real murderer off his guard, and that I might be able to track him down in the end.”