Somehow, Elsa's guilt seemed painfully obvious. Her embarrassment, her confusion of the night before—how were they to be accounted for? Was there any other solution possible? Her untruthful equivocation as to where she had been—what else could it portend?
This idea about Saul was, after all, too wild and far-fetched. How could he have been guilty of the attack on Osmond without the Battishills being aware of the fact?
No; the theory was ingenious, but, in his opinion, it would not hold water. He said so, aloud, after a long interval of silence.
"I shall at all events see if facts fit in at all with it," said Percivale, quietly. "Drowning men catch at straws, you know." Pausing a moment he then added, almost reverently:
"If that beautiful woman is arraigned for this crime—if she has ever to stand in the dock to answer to the charge of fratricide, or even manslaughter, I shall feel all the rest of my life though as if I were stained, shamed, degraded from my rightful post of helper to the oppressed. I feel as though I could cut through armies single-handed sooner than see Frederick Orton's wife triumph over the youth and helplessness of Miss Brabourne."
He hesitated over the name, breathing it softly, as a devotee might name a patron saint.
"You know something of the Ortons?" asked Claud.
"By reputation—yes," returned Percivale, with the air of one who does not intend to say more.
Had he chosen, he could have edified his companion with an account of how, last summer, at Oban, Mrs. Orton had determined, by hook or by crook, to become acquainted with the mysterious owner of the Swan, of whom no one knew more than his name, his unsociable habits, and his somewhat remarkable appearance; and how she prosecuted this design with so much vigor that he was obliged to intimate to her, as unequivocably as is possible from a gentleman to a lady, that he declined the honor of her acquaintance.
He said nothing of this, however; evidently, whatever his merits or his failings, he was a very uncommunicative person.