There was only one person who had any motive for wishing to be rid of this man. One person who, made desperate by some great despair, enmeshed perhaps by some net hellishly contrived by a villain, hopeless of any means of extrication, in a moment of madness, might have—No! In the face of every evidence that earth could offer,—against reason, against hearing, eyesight, judgment, and memory,—he would say, as he said now, No! She was innocent! She was innocent! She had looked in her husband's face, the clear light had shone from her luminous eyes, a stream of electric radiance penetrating straight to his heart,—and he had trusted her.
"I'll trust her at the worst," he thought. "If all living creatures upon this wide earth joined their voices in one great cry of upbraiding, I'd stand by her to the very end, and defy them."
Aurora and Mrs. Lofthouse had fallen asleep upon opposite sofas; Mrs. Powell was walking softly up and down the long drawing-room, waiting and watching,—waiting for a fuller knowledge of this ruin which had come upon her employer's household.
Mrs. Mellish sprang up suddenly at the sound of her husband's step as he entered the drawing-room.
"Oh, John!" she cried, running to him and laying her hands upon his broad shoulders, "thank Heaven you are come back! Now tell me all! Tell me all, John! I am prepared to hear anything, no matter what. This is no ordinary accident. The man who was hurt——"
Her eyes dilated as she looked at him, with a glance of intelligence that plainly said, "I can guess what has happened."
"The man was very seriously hurt, Lolly," her husband answered quietly.
"What man?"
"The trainer recommended to me by John Pastern."
She looked at him for a few moments in silence.