Henry was grasping him by both shoulders now, and clinging to him as if the floor were unsteady beneath his feet.
"You ran to tell me," he repeated, mechanically—"to tell me—what? Claud, if this is true, it means life to me—life to those good women yonder—it means salvation for her, for my poor little girl, for Elsa!"
His forehead sank on his outstretched arm, and his broad shoulders quivered.
Claud softly patted his back, his own bright face all alight with unselfish gladness.
"It's all true," he said, "true beyond your power to disbelieve. That Percivale is a wonderful fellow. Once he struck the scent, he stuck to it like a sleuth-hound. Every bit of evidence tallies exactly. The whole thing is as clear as daylight. All I marvel at now is that Saul Parker has been allowed to be at large for so long—how it was that nobody insisted on his being shut up."
"But I never knew he was really dangerous," said Henry. "Such a thing as a murderous attack, I mean—I knew that lately he had taken to throwing stones, and I told him the other day that I should flog him if I found it out again. He has sense enough to know what he is not to do—that is what makes him so difficult to deal with. But that he should attempt murder!"
"I remember him so well, in the Battishills' kitchen, the day he nearly did for poor Allonby," said Claud. "He must have hidden his pudding-basin, after eating the contents, somewhere in a hedge, and walked, calmly smiling, up to the farm, immediately after his first attempt at slaughter. Ugh! It's a grisly thought, isn't it, that we all have been walking calmly about all this summer with such a sword of Damocles over our heads. Why, those girls—the Miss Allonbys—he might have attacked them at any moment; they were all strangers."
"Yes, but they had spoken to him, and been kind to him. Poor Godfrey owes his fate to his own malignity, I am afraid," said Henry, turning away with a heavy sigh. He passed his hand over his brow as if to clear it, and then, lifting his eyes to Claud's, smiled for the first time in many hours. "I feel as if you had waked me out of a nightmare," he said—"a horror that was overwhelming—that shut out everything, even hope ... and God. Now that it is over, I wonder how I could have brought myself to believe such a thing of her." He spoke slowly, and at intervals, as each thought occurred to him. "Poor child! poor slandered child! Claud, she must know it to-night. We must save her so many hours of suffering—we must tell her now. Where is Mr. Percivale?"
"He is gone there—straight—to Edge. I parted from him at the cross-roads, and ran up here for you."
"He has every right to be first," faltered Henry. "Will anything I can do for Elsa ever atone for the wrong of my unjust suspicion? God pardon me! I was sure she was guilty."