Now the detective's strong chain of evidence, John Burrill's strange insinuations, and still stranger conduct, his words when he spoke, his reticence when he kept silence, all were arrayed against him, with telling effect, and in spite of them all, Constance Wardour angrily assured herself, and fully believed, that Clifford Heath was a wronged, and innocent man. She did not reason herself into this belief; and it was absurd, of course. She arrived at her conclusions, as all loving women do, through her feelings, and her instinct. A woman seldom reasons, but in many cases her ready intuition is worth more than all man's wisdom. Her delicate instinct strikes directly at the truth, when man's reason gropes in darkness.
Constance went out very little during these troubled days, and for this there were several reasons. John Burrill's obtrusiveness was at its height, and he fairly haunted the vicinity of Wardour; and since the advent of Mr. Belknap, Constance had an uneasy feeling that she was in some way, under surveillance. Nelly, who was argus-eyed, and always in armor on behalf of her mistress, had, on one or two occasions, spied a lurker about the premises; and Constance was resolved to give Mr. Belknap as little trouble, on her account, as possible. She had not visited Sybil for some days, for, although she had informed the detective that she desired to consult Mr. Lamotte, she had no such intentions; and, since the day when she had promised Mr. Lamotte to retain the detective for another week, she had avoided meeting him, and being forced to resume the conversation.
To know herself under the watchful eye of one detective, while anxiously expecting the advent of another, and to be aware that the presence of the one must not be made known to the other, afforded her a new and strange sensation; not altogether an unpleasant one either, for Constance was no coward, and had a decided taste for adventure.
She realized, too, the absurdity of being thus shadowed in her own house, by her own hired agent.
"I should go down to posterity as the first woman who ever hired a spy to watch herself," she mused with a little laugh. "I begin to think that I am an absurd creature, throughout."
Two days passed, and Constance endured them, although the hours crept slowly. On the third, her anxiety was almost beyond control.
If Bathurst should fail her! If her letter had not found him! If he were absent from the city! Oh, what a chance was here for disaster. Mr. Belknap would soon be in the field, and Ray's time had almost expired.
"Oh," she said, anxiously, "if he disappoints me, what shall I do. I must trust Ray, and will he be strong enough to battle with this danger?"
While she mused thus, growing wild with anxiety, a half grown boy, bearing on his head a small tray of delicate ivory carvings, was applying for admittance at the servants' entrance. He was shabbily dressed, but possessed a fine, intelligent face, and bore himself with cool confidence.
"I have brought the carving for Miss Wardour," he said, briskly. "Can I see her, please?"