"Well, that ought to lead us to something clear. That alone is almost certain proof of what I said just now. 'Resurrection-men,' as the stupid public calls them—would have taken the body alone. Not only because they escape all charge of felony by doing so, but that it is so much easier; and for many other reasons which you may imagine. I begin to see my way more clearly. Depend upon it, this is some family matter. Some private feud, or some motive of money, or perhaps even some religious scruple lies at the bottom of this strange affair. I begin to think that you will have to go to Spain, before you understand it all. How has Lady Waldron behaved about it?"
"She has been most bitter against poor Jemmy." Mr. Penniloe had not heard of what was happening this very week at Walderscourt. "She will not see him, will not hear his name, and is bitter against any one who takes his part. She cannot even bring herself to speak to me, because in common fairness I have done my best for him, against the general opinion, and her own firm conclusion. That is one reason why I am in London now. She will not even act with me in taking probate of the will. In fact it has driven her, as I fear, almost to the verge of insanity; for she behaves most unkindly even to her daughter. But she is more to be pitied than blamed, poor thing."
"I agree with you; in case of all this being genuine. But is it so? Or is it a bit of acting over-acted? I have known women, who could act so as to impose upon their own brains."
"It has never once entered my head," replied the simple-minded Parson, "to doubt that all she says, and does, is genuine. Even you could not doubt, if you beheld her."
"I am not so sure of that," observed Sir Harrison very drily; "the beauty of your character is the grand simplicity. You have not the least idea of any wickedness."
"My dear fellow," cried the Parson deeply shocked; "it is, alas, my sad duty to find out and strive with the darkest cases of the depravity of our fallen race!"
"Of course. But you think none the worse of them for that. It is water on a duck's back, to such a man as you. Well, have it so; if you like. I see the worst of their bodies, and you the worst of their souls, as you suppose. But I think you put some of your own into them—infusion of sounder blood, as it were."
"Gowler, you may think as ill, as fallen nature can make you think, of all your fellow-creatures;" Mr. Penniloe spoke with a sharpness very seldom found in words of his. "But in fair truth, it is beyond the blackest of all black bitterness to doubt poor Lady Waldron's simple and perfect sincerity."
"Because of her very magnificent eyes," Sir Harrison answered, as if to himself, and to meet his own too charitable interjections. "But what has she done, to carry out her wild revenge at an outrage, which she would feel more keenly perhaps than the most sensitive of English women? Has she moved high and low, ransacked the earth, set all the neighbourhood on fire, and appealed with tears, and threats, and money, (which is the strongest of all appeals) to the Cæsar enthroned in London? If she had done any of these things, I fancy I should have heard of them."
For the moment Mr. Penniloe disliked his friend; as a man may feel annoyance at his own wife even, when her mind for some trivial cause is moving on a lower level than his own.