“No: we missed her at Dover—just as we had embarked on board the French steam-ship——”
“Then you are doomed to receive another dreadful shock, my poor boy,” continued Mr. Hatfield, in a tone of deep commiseration: “for Mrs. Slingsby—or Mrs. Fitzhardinge—or whatever she calls herself—was arrested at Dover, in consequence of a communication made by electric telegraph from London——”
“Arrested!” cried Charles, his amazement for a moment becoming stronger even than his deep—deep grief.
“Yes—arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a murder of an atrocious character at Pentonville!” added Mr. Hatfield, in a solemn and impressive tone.
“Merciful God!” ejaculated the young man, clasping his hands together as if in mortal agony: “surely I have fallen in with fiends in female disguise. But Perdita—Perdita,” he cried, the lingering remnants of affection causing him to hope that he was destined to hear nothing more terrible of her than the revelations which had already crushed him as it were to the very dust: “she at least, father, is unsuspected in this dreadful affair?”
“The old woman who is suspected, and whose countenance was seen by a witness as she issued from the house of the murdered man,—that old woman, who is no doubt Mrs. Slingsby, was accompanied by another and younger female——”
“Tell me no more, father!” almost yelled forth Charles Hatfield, literally writhing on the sofa, as if with the poignant anguish of a wound in a vital part.
“Compose yourself, my dear son—if it be possible,” said the disconsolate parent: “for I have many other things to tell you,—other dreams to destroy,—dreams equally as bright as the hallucinations which you had entertained relative to this wicked and hypocritical Perdita. But first I ought to observe that there appears to be no direct evidence to fix the murder of Mr. Percival——”
“Percival!” repeated Charles, another and still more dreadful pang shooting through his heart: “tell me—Percival did you say?—Percival—a money-lender——”
“The same,” cried Mr. Hatfield: “for I last evening read the entire account of the murder in an English paper which I saw at the hotel where I have put up.”