“To be sure, child, to be sure! But how queer you look!”
“Oh, I am bad, my heart aches, and my body aches, and there’s no rest for me on earth. Come, mother, put on your bonnet. I told the cab to wait, and we must leave here to-night. We must find the child.”
“They say,” cried Mrs. Ives, “that a doctor is coming down from London to-morrow morning. They’re going to open the vault, and they are going to take out the coffin.”
“Let them. It doesn’t matter. Richard Pelham will be saved. The beautiful young lady will have a life of happiness. I go under forever, but what does that matter? Come, mother, come at once.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
ACE OF TRUMPS.
As soon as Clara left him, Tarbot put on his hat and went to see the solicitor for the prosecution. The latter had made an appointment to see Tarbot between three and four o’clock. He had a long interview with the doctor, in which details with regard to Pelham’s trial were most carefully gone into. Tarbot told what he had to tell in a quiet voice, his face calm and stern-looking. Now and then to a close observer there might have been seen what looked almost like a sorrowful expression stealing round the lips.
When Tarbot had given all his information Mr. Cornish spoke.
“By the way, this is an unpleasant business for you,” he said. “That part about the post obit will not sound too well. You got him to sign that, remember.”
“I did it simply because I had no other security for my money. As matters have turned out I know well that this part of the affair will not redound to my credit. But, after all, what was I to do? I could not hold back because of that. I was the child’s guardian, remember, and Mrs. Pelham was my great friend.”
“A case of conscience. I quite understand,” said Cornish. “Well, it is all sad and terrible. The case will go, without the slightest doubt, against the prisoner.”