“Stop. I’m going on too fast. It may be remorse and horror for the robbery. He could not have murdered Gartram. Poor fellow, he did indulge in chloral, and the doctor said it was an overdose. No, Gartram was too clever and experienced in his treatment of himself for that. I can’t help it; something seems to impel me. I must go.
“And Claude!
“I can’t help it. I feel so sure. Better the shock and be free, than be slowly tortured to death by a man who is little better than a devil.
“Yes,” he cried finally, “I am sure, but I’ll take other advice before I proceed very much further.”
The consequence was that poor Mrs Sarson was horrified at not receiving her mortgage deed to hide away, and shivered as she credited the lawyer with going off to London to spend her savings of a life, for she could only obtain from his office the news that he was out on business.
As shown, Mrs Sarson was not the only one who had misjudged Trevithick, for, in his abstraction and earnest following of the quest upon which he was now engaged, there were no more meetings with Mary; and his avoidance of her when they met was for very special reasons of his own.
“I can save her from the scene,” he had said, “though I cannot save poor Claude.”
He was wrong, for he found her hurrying back with Sarah Woodham, and when he hurriedly tried to stay her, she turned upon him angrily, and refused to hear.
And so it was that Claude was seated alone in the library that day, sick at heart, as she thought of her future, and asking herself what she could do to win her husband’s love and bring herself to love him, when one of the maids announced that a gentleman wanted to see master.
“Yes, Mr Glyddyr,” said a quiet, firm voice, and the man, who had followed the servant, stepped in, signed to the girl to go, closed the door after her, and then turned to face Claude, who had risen and was standing trembling, as if from a suspicion of some terrible trouble to come.