“And Helen is my friend!” said Cécile. She was shaken in her idea of her lover’s perfection, and she was shaken in her confidence in the English nation, and the pre-eminence of “lofe” in all their affairs—which she had hitherto devoutly believed in, and of which Charley Ashton’s conduct had given her delightful assurance. As for Thérèse, she was fully of Cécile’s opinion, but yet could not help feeling that if M. Charles had behaved like a reasonable creature, and fulfilled the expectations formed of him before his arrival, it would have been better for himself. For herself, Thérèse was glad things had happened otherwise; she was relieved that her mamma had given up all intention of marrying her for that year. But so far as M. Charles was concerned, for him it would have been a great deal better. With this reservation, which on the whole quickened her zeal by mingling it with a grain of pity, Thérèse threw herself generously and warmly into Helen’s cause.
When the instruction was terminated, and all had been investigated that could be investigated, there was a complete failure in every attempt to trace the criminal. The French law, so suspicious and peremptory, failed just as English criminal proceedings, so much more halting and imperfect, so often fail. Antoine’s alibi seemed complete. There was no evidence to be found which connected him with the incidents of the fatal night. Mr Goulburn’s English cheque-book was found indeed, torn up and defaced, on the road by which he must have travelled to the chef-lieu of the department; but the culprit, whoever he had been, would most likely have travelled by the same road. The only other thing which that culprit had dropped was the morocco letter-case which Helen had brought from her father’s room at Fareham on the night of their flight. After all the examinations were over, this was restored to her. She came in, carrying it in her hand, to the library where Sir John was spending his morning. It was nearly three weeks after her father’s death, and hostile though Sir John was, both to the dead father and the living daughter, it was partly on their account that his visit had been prolonged. He did not choose to leave them in possession of the field, and he was anxious to save Charley, as he said to himself, from the clutches of the girl, who, being Goulburn’s daughter, was no doubt an adventuress too. A violent controversy on this subject had, indeed, been going on between the two men, when Helen softly opened the door and went in upon them. Sir John was seated at a writing-table with a flushed and angry countenance, while Charley, not less excited, paced about the library. It was a large, long room on the upper floor, with a row of long windows looking out upon the woods and the park. The two men, whose angry voices she had heard without paying much attention to them as she approached, suddenly stopped with embarrassed faces as she made her appearance at the door. Sir John, with an air half of anger, half of surprise, pushed back his chair from the table and looked at her, while Charley hurried to her side and took her hand to lead her forward.
“Did you want me, Helen?” he said, in a tone doubly tender, drawing her hand within his arm. At this little exhibition Sir John uttered an angry “humph!”
“I came to bring you this,” said Helen. “I do not know what it is best to do with it. We brought it out of Fareham with us. Papa always said it was Janey’s fortune. But if it is true, as you say, that he owes people money—yes, I know it is true; he told me so himself—this ought, perhaps, to be taken to pay some of them. As for Janey, she is very little, she does not want much now, and I have a hundred a-year—that will be enough for her and me.’
“Let me see it,” said Sir John, with some eagerness.
Nobody had been allowed to see the papers so long as they remained in the magistrate’s hands. He opened them out with a great deal of interest, shaking one after another out of the case. As he looked at them, opening each in succession, gleams of excitement passed over his face. He made hurried calculations under his breath; there were coupons, vouchers of money invested, many things quite unintelligible to Helen. Sir John’s fingers trembled with eagerness as he turned them over; there were various kinds of excitement and pleasure combined in his survey—pleasure in so much money recovered, for himself as well as his fellow-sufferers, fierce satisfaction in finding the culprit as bad as he hoped, the delight of being able to think and say “I told you so,” all intensifying the pleasure of a new incident after long suspense. The two others looked on with very different feelings. Helen was not alive to the meaning of it all. She stood by even with a kind of consolation and gentle content in the thought that whatever wrong her father might have done would now be partially made up. She did not look at the face with which her lover regarded these discoveries, the disgust and pain and shame on his countenance conveyed no idea to her inexperience. She did not like Sir John, but she thought his exclamations, his looks of cruel elation, were only his disagreeable way of showing pleasure in the recovery of the money. She stood looking on for some time quite calmly. And then she said, “Will you divide it among the poorest people, please? He would have liked that best.”
Sir John broke out with a fierce laugh. “No,” he said rudely, “I cannot do sentimental injustice, Miss Helen. Your father had made a pretty provision for you, I must say; you ought to be obliged to his providence. But for this lucky chance, whoever suffered, he had very well feathered his nest.”
“Harvey!” cried Ashton, vehemently, “how can you speak before her of a lucky chance?”
Sir John pushed back his chair farther from the table and looked at them. “I call it so,” he said, “in every point of view. It is the best thing that could have happened for the man himself, and it is the highest luck for the children, and for you, if you insist like a fool in connecting yourself with such a——”
“Silence!” thundered Charley, making a step forward—“not another word!”