Mrs. Chattaway acquiesced: it was the only conclusion she could come to.
"Oh, Aunt Edith, if he would only forgive me!" sighed Rupert. "When I get well—and I should get well, if I could go back to the Hold and get this fear out of me—I would work night and day to repay him the cost of the ricks. If he would only forgive me!"
Ah! none knew better than Mrs. Chattaway how vain was the wish; how worse than vain any hope of forgiveness. She could have told him, had she chosen, of an unhappy scene of the past night, when she, Edith Chattaway, urged by the miserable state of existing things and her tribulation for Rupert, had so far forgotten prudence as to all but kneel to her husband and beg him to forgive that poor culprit; and Mr. Chattaway, excited to the very depths of anger, had demanded of his wife whether she were mad or sane, that she should dare ask it.
"Yes, Rupert," she meekly said, "I wish it also, for your sake. But, my dear, it is just an impossibility."
"If I could be got safely out of the country, I might go to Mr. Daw for a time, and get up my strength there."
"Yes, if you could. But in your weak state discovery would be the result before you were clear from these walls. You cannot take flight in the night. Everyone knows you: and the police, we have heard, are keeping their eyes open."
"I'd bribe Dumps, if I had money——"
Rupert's voice dropped. A commotion had suddenly arisen downstairs, and, his fears ever on the alert touching the police and Mr. Chattaway, he put up his hand to enjoin caution, and bent his head to listen. But no strange voice could be distinguished: only those of old Canham and his daughter. A short time, and Ann came up the stairs, looking strange.
"What's the matter?" panted Rupert, who was the first to catch sight of her face.
"I can't think what's come to father, sir," she returned. "I was in the back place, washing up, and heard a sort o' cry, as one may say, so I ran in. There he was standing with his hair all on end, and afore I could speak he began saying he'd seen a ghost go past. He's staring out o' window still. I hope his senses are not leaving him!"