"I deserve and require no praise, doctor," answered the Earl. "What would I not have done to ensure the safety of him who has behaved so generously to me? During the whole of Monday night, I sate by his bed-side, anxiously awaiting the moment when slumber should leave his heavy eye-lids; for I knew that I had welcome—most welcome tidings for his ears. But he slept on until you came: and then, doctor, you were a witness of the joy which he experienced on learning that he had not been the cause of the death of Benjamin Bones—miscreant though the man be!"
Scarcely were these words uttered, when a low but hasty knock at the front door caused Lord Ellingham to spring from his seat—seize the lamp—and hasten to answer the summons.
Dr. Lascelles could hear the Earl ejaculate the words—"Jacob Smith!"—then a hurried whisper took place in the hall;—and, in another moment, the joyous exclamation—"Thank God! thank God!" bursting from the young nobleman's lips, met the physician's ears.
And Dr. Lascelles thereby knew that Rainford had succeeded in quitting the shores of England in safety!
CHAPTER LXV.
THE EXAMINATION.
The reader will remember that, according to the arrangements originally chalked out, Lord Ellingham and Jacob Smith were to have accompanied Tom Rain to France. But this project was disturbed by the appearance of Old Death in the house in Red Lion Street, and the incidents to which it gave rise, as narrated in the last chapter.
For, the Earl—having succeeded in making Old Death and Tidmarsh his prisoners—resolved to remain in the house, not only that he might, by means of frequent visits to the subterranean, guard against their escape, but also to supply them with food and to liberate them when circumstances should render their farther confinement unnecessary.
Thus was it that Tom Rain and Jacob had proceeded without the Earl to Dover, and that the lad had returned thence to London the moment he had seen Rainford safe on board the cutter which Mr. de Medina had hired especially to convey him to France. Nay—Jacob was not content with merely witnessing the embarkation of the individual to whom he had become so deeply attached; but, in spite of the instructions he had received alike from the Earl and Tom Rain himself to return with the least possible delay to the metropolis, he had lingered on the pier at Dover until the white sails of the cutter were no longer in sight.
He therefore arrived somewhat later in London than had been expected, although he travelled post and spared not the gold placed at his disposal to urge the postillions on: but when he frankly admitted to Lord Ellingham and the doctor the reason of his retarded appearance in Red Lion Street, they could not find it in their hearts to utter a word of reproach or blame.
No:—for Lord Ellingham's joy was now as exuberant as his apprehensions had a short time previously been strong and oppressive; and he wrung the hand of the humble Jacob as if that lad had been his own brother!