He found Juanita reclining on a low couch near the fire in a dimly-lighted room, that room which he remembered having entered only once before, on the occasion of an afternoon party at the Priory, when Sir Godfrey had taken him to his den to show him a newly acquired folio copy of Thomson’s “Seasons,” with the famous Bartolozzi mezzotints. It was a good old room, especially at this wintry season, when the dulness of the outlook was of little consequence. The firelight gleamed cheerily on the rich bindings of the books, and on the dark woodwork, and fondly touched Juanita’s reclining figure and the rich folds of her dark plush tea-gown.
“How good of you to come to see me so soon, Theodore!” she said, giving him her hand. “I know you only came to Dorchester yesterday. The girls were here the day before, and told me they expected you.”
“You did not think I should be in the county very long without finding my way here, did you, Juanita?”
“Well, no, perhaps not. I know what a true friend you are. And now tell me, have you made any further discoveries?”
“One more discovery, Juanita, as I told you briefly in my last letter. I have traced the Squire’s daughter to the sad close of a most unhappy life—and so ends the Strangway family as you know of their existence—that is to say, those three Strangways who had some right to feel themselves aggrieved by the loss of the land upon which they were born.”
“Tell me all you heard from Miss Newton. Your letter was brief and vague, but as I knew I was to see you at Christmas I waited for fuller details. Tell me everything, Theodore.”
He obeyed her, and related the bitter, commonplace story of Evelyn Strangway’s life, as told him by her old governess. There were no elements of romance in the story. It was as common as the Divorce Court or the daily papers.
“Poor creature! Well, there ends my theory, at least about her,” said Juanita, gloomily. “Her brothers were dead, and she was dead, long before that fatal night. Did they bequeath their vengeance to any one else, I wonder? Who else is there in this world who had reason to hate my father or me? And I know that no creature upon this earth could have cause to hate my husband.”
“In your father’s calling there is always a possibility of a deadly hate, inexplicable, unknown to the subject. Remember the fate of Lord Mayo. A judge who holds the keys of life and death must make many enemies.”
“Yes,” she sighed, “there is that to be thought of. Oh, my dearest and best, why did you ever link your life with that of a Judge’s daughter? I feel as if I had lured him to his doom. I might have foreseen the danger. I ought never to have married. What right had I? Some discharged felon lay in wait for him—some relentless, Godless, hopeless wretch—whom my father had condemned to long imprisonment—whose angry heart my father had scorched with his scathing speech. I have read some of his summings up, and they have seemed cruel, cruel, cruel—so cold, so deliberate, so like a god making light of the sins of men. Some wretch, coming maddened out of his silent cell, and seeing my husband—that white, pure life, that brave, strong youth—prosperous, honoured, happy—seeing what a good man’s life can be—lay in wait like a tiger, to destroy that happy life. If it was not one of the Strangways who killed him, it must have been such a man.”