“But your daughter charged Angèle with this—this crime. My child denies it. She has no knife or implement of any sort in her pocket. I assure you I have satisfied myself on that point.”
“The affair is a mystery, Mrs. Saumarez. It must be cleared up. Thank God, Martin escaped! He might be lying here dead at this moment.”
“Are you sure it was not an accident?”
“What am I to say? Here is a stout hempen cord with nearly all its strands severed as if with a razor, and the other torn asunder. And, from what I can gather, it was Elsie, and not Martin, for whose benefit this diabolical outrage was planned.”
The vicar spoke warmly, but the significance of the incident was dawning slowly on his perplexed mind. Providence alone had ordained that neither the boy nor the girl had been gravely, perhaps fatally, injured.
Mrs. Saumarez was haggard. She seemed to have aged in those few minutes.
“Angèle!” she cried.
The girl, who was sobbing, came to her.
“Can it be possible,” said the distracted mother, “that you interfered with the swing? Why did you leave the drawing-room during tea?”