"Ay, I did."
"And then, did you go away immediately?"
"Nay, I waited out of curiosity for a few minutes. I heard the door snick, and then I waited until I saw a light in her bedroom. I said to myself, 'Jean will have a good deal to think about to-night.' I didn't think then that things would be so unfavourable to me."
"What do you mean?" asked the judge.
"Well, being, as I tell't you, a Scotsman, and a canny Scotsman at that, I naturally thought that the man who had discovered her husband for her would have a slight claim on her when she came into her own."
"Ah, I see," said the judge.
For more than an hour they sat talking, the Scotsman cool and self-contained, the judge asking keen, searching questions.
Presently Archie Fearn wended his way towards the part of the town where he had a lodging. "It's a peety the public-houses are all closed," he said, as he lovingly felt the five-pound note which the judge had given him. "Still, there's a to-morrow; and it may be I've done a good night's work after all."
As for the judge, he sat for a long time thinking. The house was now in silence. Everyone had gone to bed. He went upstairs and listened outside Mary's bedroom door. Evidently his daughter had retired. He went to the door of the room where his wife lay. All was silent. Then he came downstairs again.
"I am in my son's house," he said to himself, "and he—he's lying in Strangeways Gaol! I wonder whether, after all, this night may not mean a great deal. Anyhow, it's narrowed the circle of inquiry. It proves Jean was guiltless of this thing, and Mary altogether mistaken. I wonder what she will say when I tell her!"