“I thought she was here once. It must have been a dream,” he said to Elithe,—adding after a moment, “I believe I knew you were here all the time,—you and Sherry,” and he stroked the head of the dog, sitting on his haunches beside him and looking at him with almost human intelligence in his eyes.
He did not talk much now, except occasionally with his father of the future, which was so dark and full of peril.
“They have stopped looking for me, you think?” he would say: “but what of that? I can’t stay here forever. If I don’t give myself up again, what am I to do?”
This question was hard to answer, and, as the days went by and Paul grew stronger and realized his real position, he grew more and more restless and unhappy,—with a desire to see Clarice and talk with her of what he ought to do. Nearly every visitor had left Oak City except the Percys, who had been kept there by the continued indisposition of Clarice. Paul had heard that she was going on the morrow and he begged so hard to see her that his father finally consented, and Elithe was asked to take a note from him and explain.
Clarice had passed from nervous prostration into a kind of stony apathy and indifference to everything around her. When she heard of Paul’s escape she was glad, and gladder still when told that people believed he had managed to reach the mainland and was probably a thousand miles away. She hoped he would not be recaptured, as the disgrace for herself would be less than if he were convicted and punished. Mrs. Percy did not quite see the distinction, but Clarice did.
“If the man I was to have married should be hung, or sent to prison, I could never hold up my head again. It’s bad enough that he should have killed Jack and been tried for his life,” she said, losing sight of Paul’s unhappy position, and thinking only of her own.
She did not know whether she believed the shooting accidental or not, but, in either case, she blamed Paul for having brought this trouble upon her,—ruined her life, she said,—feeling sometimes that she could not forgive him if the law should set him free. To lose her position as his wife was hard, but her brother’s blood was on his hands and she must not marry him. How much this decision was influenced by a letter received by her mother from Ralph Fenner, the Englishman, telling her that his uncle, the old earl, was dead, and also the little boy next in the succession, leaving only his invalid brother between him and the title, it is hard to say. She had sent him cards to her wedding, and he wrote on the assumption that she was married, and sent his congratulations to her and Paul, inviting them, if they ever came to England, to visit him at Elm Park, his late uncle’s country seat, where, with his brother, he was living. The possibility which this letter opened up did not occur to her at first, and she would not have admitted that it occurred to her at all or made her think less kindly of Paul. She was reading this letter a second time when Elithe’s card was brought to her. Something told her that Elithe was bringing her news of Paul, and she signified her willingness to see her. She could not forget that Jack had loved the girl and her manner was more cordial than haughty as she went forward to meet her.
“I have a message from Mr. Ralston,” Elithe began at once.
“Where is he?” Clarice asked, and Elithe replied by telling her particulars of the escape and of the Smuggler’s room in the basement of the Ralston House, where Paul was taken; of his delirious illness, when he talked so much of Clarice, thinking she was with him; of the days of convalescence, harder to bear than positive illness; of his despair as he counted the weary years which must be spent in hiding and his oft-repeated resolves to give himself up to justice.
“He goes around the house when no one is there,” she said, “and is often in the look-out on the roof, where he can see the boats as they go out and come in. He heard you were to leave to-morrow and wishes you to come to him this evening. Here is his note.”