“We kin keep you overnight, if you kin put up with a straw bed and corn pone and bacon,” the host returned with homely hospitality, which the doctor complimented by declaring he desired nothing better.
He would willingly have rested on a plank rather than forego the opportunity of remaining till to-morrow, and still further probing the mystery of the wounded stranger, whom these stupid, kindly people had nursed without a suspicion of his connection with the funeral train that had been wrecked on the hill above.
The doctor’s keen, clever, analytical mind was rapidly putting two and two together. As he turned uneasily on his straw cot that night he was scarcely conscious of the discomfort, he was so busily, eagerly, saying to himself:
“If the corpse went into the river it would have come to the surface ere now. What if it rolled down instead into the stupid ferryman’s back yard?”
If he could only prove his suspicions true his revenge was ready to his hand.
If Doctor Ludington and Doctor Rupert were the same man, Eva would turn with bitter scorn and abhorrence from her cousin’s slayer.
There would be no joyful wedding, no happy bride and bridegroom. Doctor Ludington would go to prison instead.
In his malignity he was not content with having banished Eva in disgrace and thrown her penniless on the world. He was eager to wreck her life to satiate his jealous pain.
He thanked his lucky stars that fate had led him to this spot in the nick of time. He would never leave it till he got some clue to work upon.
Racking his brain with futile plans, he scarcely slept at all, and rose early the next morning, prying about the garret in which he was lodged, in idle curiosity.