“Oh, the assassin in that case was an Indian, and a maniac. We live in a different latitude. Besides, it is rather too far-fetched an idea to suppose that a man would shoot my son-in-law in order to avenge himself upon me.”
“The shot may have been fired under a misapprehension. The figure seated reading in the lamplight may have been mistaken for you.”
“The assassin must have been uncommonly short-sighted to make such a mistake. I won’t say such a thing would be impossible, for experience has taught me that there is nothing in this life too strange to be true; but it is too unlikely a notion to dwell upon. Indeed, I think, Theodore, we must dismiss this painful business from our minds. If the mystery is ever to be cleared up, it will be by a fluke; but even that seems to me a very remote contingency. Have you not observed that if a murderer is not caught within three months of his crime he is hardly ever caught at all? I might almost say if he is not caught within one month. Once let the scent cool and the chances are a hundred to one in his favour.”
“Yet Juanita has set her heart upon seeing her husband avenged.”
“Ah, that is where her Spanish blood shows itself. An Englishwoman, pure and simple, would think only of her sorrow. My poor girl hungers for revenge. Providence may favour her, perhaps, but I doubt it. The best thing that can happen to her will be to forget her first husband, fine young fellow as he was, and choose a second. It is horrible to think that the rest of her life is to be a blank. With her beauty and position she may look high. I am obliged to be ambitious for my daughter, you see, Theodore, since Heaven has not spared me a son.”
Theodore saw only too plainly that, whatever favour his hopes might have from soft-hearted Lady Cheriton, his own kinsman, James Dalbrook, would be against him. This mattered very little to him at present, in the face of the lady’s indifference. One gleam of hope from Juanita herself would have seemed more to him than all the favour of parents or kindred. It was her hand that held his fate: it was she alone who could make his life blessed.
New Year’s Day was fine but frosty, a sharp, clear day on which Cheriton Park looked loveliest, the trees made fairy-like by the light rime, the long stretches of turf touched with a silvery whiteness, the distant copses and boundary of pine-trees half hidden in a pale grey mist.
Theodore walked across the park with Lady Cheriton to the eleven o’clock service in the church at the end of Cheriton village. It was nearly a mile from the great house to the fine old fifteenth-century church, but Lady Cheriton always walked to church in decent weather, albeit her servants were conveyed there luxuriously in a capacious omnibus specially retained for their use. On the way along the silent avenue Theodore told her of his meeting with Miss Newton’s protégée, and of Juanita’s idea that the woman called Marian might be no other than Mercy Porter.
“I certainly remember no other case of a girl about here leaving her home under disgraceful circumstances—that is to say, any girl of refinement and education,” said Lady Cheriton. “There have been cases among the villagers, no doubt; but if this girl of yours is really a superior person, and really comes from Cheriton, I think Juanita is right, and that you must have stumbled upon Mercy Porter. Her mother ought to be told about it, without delay.”
“Will you tell her, or will you put me in the way of doing so?”