The time glided on; now it was day, now it was night; but day or night, that time seemed to Harry Vine one long and terrible punishment. He heard the voices of searchers in boats and along the cliffs overhead, and sat trembling with dread lest he should be discovered: and with but one thought pressing ever—that as soon as Poll Perrow could tell him that the heat of the search was over, he must escape to France, not in search of the family estates, but to live in hiding, an exile, till he could purge his crime.
After a while he got over the terrible repugnance, and put on the rough pea-jacket and vest which had lain upon a dry piece of the rock, for the place was chilly, and in his inert state he was glad of the warmth; while as the days slowly crept by, his sole change was the coming of the old fish-woman with her basket punctually, almost to the moment, night by night.
He asked her no questions as to where she obtained the provender she brought for him, but took everything mechanically, and in a listless fashion, never even wondering how she could find him in delicacies as well as in freshly-cooked fish and home-made bread. Wine and brandy he had, too, as much as he wished; and when there was none for him, it was Poll Perrow who bemoaned the absence, not he.
“Poor boy!” she said to herself, “he wants it all badly enough, and he shall have what he wants somehow, and if my Liza don’t be a bit more lib’ral, I’ll go and help myself. It won’t be stealing.”
Several times over she had so much difficulty in obtaining supplies that she determined to try Madelaine and the Van Heldres; but her success was not great.
“If he’d only let me tell ’em,” she said, “it would be as easy as easy.” But at the first hint of taking any one into their confidence, Harry broke out so fiercely in opposition that the old woman said no more.
“No,” he said; “I’m dead—they believe I’m dead. Let them think so still. Some day I may go to them and tell them the truth, but now let them think I’m dead.”
“Which they do now,” said the old woman.
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated to tell him what had taken place, but he pressed her fiercely, and at last he sat trembling with horror, and with great drops bedewing his brow as she told him of the finding of the body and what had followed.