Dr Benson took his departure, perfectly aware that the young baronet would be exceedingly ill the next morning; and so he was, for Tom Candlish had a medical sanction for taking a little champagne; and the butler produced the bottle—one of many dozens laid in by Squire Luke, who had purchased them through a friend as a special brand.
It was a special brand of paraffin quality, well doctored with Hambro’ spirit; and as, after the first glass, Tom Candlish argued that the rest would be wasted or drunk by the servants, an opened bottle of the effervescent wine being useless if not utilised at once, he, in spite of the protestations of the butler, finished the bottle, and threw himself back for another week.
At the Rectory, matters had settled down somewhat, the hours gliding by without any discovery being made; and, after the first excitement and dread, Leo began to feel that she would soon be able to resume her meetings with her lover.
North had ceased to call at the Rectory, and they had not yet come face to face. But this troubled Leo less and less. As the days had passed on, and the éclaircissement had halted, so had her strength of mind and feeling of defiance increased.
“He dare not face me after his brutal treatment of poor Tom,” she had said; “and he knows the contempt in which I hold him. He cannot be so pitiful as to tell Hartley, intimate as he and my brother are. I have nothing to fear.”
She feared, though, all the same, though she did not know from whence the stroke she anticipated would fall. Dally was extremely pert, but then she always had been. She could know nothing; and in a defiant spirit, Leo settled herself down in a fool’s paradise, eagerly waiting for the recovery of the squire.
The one policeman from King’s Hampton had been over and discoursed with the one policeman of Duke’s Hampton re the sacrilege at the church, and they had taken into their counsel the one policeman stationed at Chidley Beauwells, a village five miles away, but they had made nothing out of that. There was the attack, though, upon the squire, which seemed very promising, and the trio waited upon him as soon as he was pronounced well enough to be seen.
The injury must have had an acerbating effect upon Tom Candlish, for, to use the constables’ words, they came down out of the bedroom with fleas in their ears; and after having a horn of ale apiece, went back to the village.
Their way was by the churchyard, where Moredock was sunning himself by leaning over the wall, so that the heat could play well upon his back, and he entered into conversation with the three myrmidons of the law in a questioning spirit.
“Wouldn’t give you any information, would he?”