"I'll just tell you what I came to say and then leave you, sir," she said in a broken voice. "It is all about Mrs. Everett. She stood with me close to the alders, and I described the scene of the murder and how it took place, and all of a sudden she looked me in the eyes and said something. She said that Mr. Horace Frere was the man who was murdered—but the man who committed the murder was not her son, Mr. Everett. She spoke in an awful sort of voice, and said she knew the truth—she knew that her son was innocent. Oh, sir, I got so awfully frightened—I nearly let the truth out."
"You nearly let the truth out—the truth? What do you mean?"
"Mr. Robert, is it possible that you do not know?"
"I only know what all the rest of the world knows—that Everett is guilty."
"I see, sir, that you still hold to that, and I am glad of it, but Mrs. Everett is the sort of woman to frighten a body. Her eyes seem to pierce right down to your very heart—they seem to read your secret. Mr. Awdrey, will you do what I ask you? Will you leave England for a bit? It would be dreadful for me to have done all that I have done and to find it useless in the end."
Whatever reply Awdrey might have made to this appeal was never uttered. His attention was at this moment effectually turned into another channel. He saw Mrs. Everett, his wife, and boy coming to meet him. The boy, a splendid little fellow with rosy cheeks and vigorous limbs, ran down the path with a glad cry to fling himself into his father's arms. He was a princely looking boy, a worthy scion of the old race. Awdrey, absorbed with his son, took no notice of Hetty. Unperceived by him she slipped down a side path and was lost to view.
"Dad," cried the child, in a voice of rapture.
Margaret and Mrs. Everett came up to the pair.
"I hope you are better, Robert," said his wife.
"I suppose I am," he answered. "I had a fairly good night. How well Arthur looks this morning."