Two Wives.
Chris Lisle caught Trevithick, too, by the shoulder as he was leaving Danmouth that day, and, half wild with excitement, implored him to say whether the rumour was true.
“True enough, Mr Lisle. Mr Glyddyr is arrested, and his friend, who is believed to be an accomplice, was taken yesterday in London.”
Chris fell back, staring like one who has received some mental shock, and then walked slowly along the main street of the place to get to the bridge and go up the glen, so as to try and think quietly of all that it might mean to him.
As he went along he became dimly conscious of the fact that first one and then another touched his cap, or gave him a friendly nod; but he was too much dazed to pay any heed, and he could only come to one conclusion: that there must be as great a mistake here as there was over the rumour about himself.
“It is too horrible to be true,” he said, with a shudder.
At the Fort, Claude lay prostrate, unable to realise the truth of what had taken place, and shuddering from time to time as the terrible scene kept coming back.
“I would have spared her if I could,” Trevithick had whispered to Mary before leaving; “but it was better that she should suffer sharply for a time than all her life.”
Mary could not speak—she dared not trust herself for fear of saying words of which she would afterwards repent, for there was a great joy in her heart now that she knew the reason for Trevithick’s silence, and she could not even go to Sarah Woodham’s side, lest she should open her heart there.
Then came days of wild excitement in the place, with event after event occurring to keep the gossip at white heat. There were the examinations of Glyddyr, at which he preserved a stubborn silence. And a fresh excitement in the presence, at the second examination, of a handsome, sharp-looking woman fashionably dressed, who took up her abode after the examination at the hotel.