‘If Mrs. Treverton will go to bed and get a little rest after all this agitation, I shall be glad of some further conversation with you before I go home,’ said Sampson, when the door had closed upon Mr. Clare.
Laura assented, turning her white, weary face to her husband, with a look full of trust and love, as he went with her to the bottom of the staircase.
‘God bless and keep you, love,’ he whispered. ‘You have shown me the way out of all my difficulties. I can afford to lose everything except your affection.’
He went back to Tom Sampson, who was scribbling in his note-book, in a brown study.
‘Now, Sampson, we are alone. What have you to say to me?’
‘A great deal. You’ve got yourself into a pretty fix. Why didn’t you trust me from the beginning? What’s the use of a man having a lawyer if he keeps his affairs dark?’
‘We won’t go into that question now,’ said John Treverton. ‘I want your advice about the future, not your lamentations over the past. What do you recommend me to do?’
‘Get away from this place to-night, on the best horse in your stable. Take the first train at the furthest station you can reach by daybreak to-morrow. Let me see. It’s not much over thirty miles to Exeter. You might get to Exeter on a good horse.’
‘No doubt. But what would be gained by such a course?’
‘You would get out of the way before you could be arrested on suspicion of being concerned in your first wife’s murder.’