“Yes. You remember the night that we called upon Percival? Well, you may recollect how he spoke of a certain visitor who had been with him——”
“Torrens—your husband,” observed Laura, quietly.
“The same. He was the murderer of Percival,” added Mrs. Mortimer, her countenance assuming an expression so fiend-like, that it was horrible to behold.
“How know you that?” demanded Laura, surprised.
“I am convinced of it,” returned her mother. “Listen! On that night when we visited the miser, Torrens had been with him: indeed, he had departed from the house only the moment before we knocked at the door. You remember that Percival said so? Well—and you also recollect that Torrens was represented to be poor and very miserable? While we were engaged with Percival, the cash-box was produced, and its contents were displayed. A man clambered up to the window, and looked through the holes in the shutters. This was proved at the police-office. We departed, and the miser was left alone. The back gate was forced open—or, rather, the wood-work was cut away in such a manner as to allow the bolt to be shot back with the fingers—and the lock was picked with a piece of iron. All this was done from the outside. Then, again, the stake whereby the old man was killed was taken from a piece of waste ground at the back of the house; and on the damp clayey soil the marks of boots were discovered. The murder was therefore perpetrated by the man whose footsteps were thus traced; and who could that man be but Torrens? I have no doubt of the accuracy of my conjectures.”
“They are reasonable, at the least,” observed Laura. “But wherefore do you trouble your head about him, when I require your assistance here in a matter of importance?”
“One moment, and you shall explain your views when I have made you acquainted with mine,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “Percival was a rich man, and that cash-box contained a treasure in notes and gold. Torrens has, no doubt, concealed himself somewhere in London;—a man who has committed such a crime invariably regards the metropolis itself as the safest hiding-place. My design is to ferret him out, and compel him by menaces to surrender into my keeping the treasure which he has obtained. You and I, Perdita—Laura, I mean—will know how to spend those thousands; and it will give me pleasure—unfeigned pleasure,” she added, with a fearful expression of countenance, “to know that he has been plunged back again into misery and want.”
“The project is a good one, mother,” said Laura; “and the money would prove most welcome. Possessed of a few thousands of pounds, I would at once act in complete independence of Mr. Hatfield. But wherefore this bitter vengeance against the man who is still your husband?”
“Because, when he was released from Newgate upwards of nineteen years ago, when imprisoned there on suspicion of having murdered a certain Sir Henry Courtenay,” said the old woman,—“when he was set free, I tell you, I still languished a prisoner in that horrible gaol. And he came not near me: he recognised me not—he loathed and abhorred me; and I knew it! You, Laura, have felt how terrible it is to be hated—shunned—forsaken by one on whom you have claims: you are still smarting under the conduct of Charles Hatfield. Can you not, then, comprehend how I should cherish feelings of bitterness against that sneaking coward—that base wretch, who was a partner in my iniquity, and who abandoned me to my fate, doubtless hoping that a halter would end my days, and for ever rid him of me.”
“But you loved not that man, according to all I have ever heard you say upon the subject,” returned Laura; “whereas,” she added, in a tone of transitory softness, “I did—yes—I did love Charles Hatfield.”