I could not tell him the real reason,—that, if I lived, I should never rest till I had at least learned the fate of Anne Pendennis.
“There’s a fascination about it,” I explained. “They’re back in the middle ages there; and you never know what’s going to happen next, to yourself or any one else.”
“Well, I’m—blessed! You’d go back just for that!”
“Why, certainly,” I assented.
There were several things I’d have liked to ask him, but I did not choose to; for I guessed he would not have answered me. One was whether he had traced the old Russian whose coming had been the beginning of all the trouble, so far as I was concerned, anyway; and how he knew that a woman—a red-haired woman as he had said—had been in Cassavetti’s rooms the night he was murdered.
If that woman were Anne—as in my heart I knew she must have been, though I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it—he must have discovered further evidence that cleared her, or he would certainly have been prosecuting a search for her, instead of arresting me.
However, I hoped to get some light on the mystery either when my case came before the magistrate, or between then and the trial, supposing I was committed for trial.
It was when we were nearing Dover, about three o’clock on a heavenly summer morning, that I began to understand my position. We were all on deck,—I lying at full length on a bench, with plenty of cushions about me, and a rug over me.
“Well, we’re nearly in,” Freeman remarked cheerfully. “Another five minutes will do it. Feel pretty fit?”
“Splendid,” I answered, swinging my feet off the bench, and sitting up.