“And will not say?”
Nadin grinned.
“Not for us,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “She may for you. But she is stubborn as a mule. I can’t say worse than that. Stubborn as a mule, Squire!”
Clyne raised his hand to hide the twitching nostril, the quivering lip that betrayed his agitation. But the hand shook. He could not yet believe that she was privy to this wickedness. But—but if she only knew it now and kept her knowledge to herself—she was, he dared not think what she was. A gust of passion took him at the thought, and whitened his face to the very lips. He had to turn away that the coarse-grained, underbred man beside him might not see too much. And a few seconds went by before he could command his voice sufficiently to ask Nadin what evidence he had of this—this monstrous charge. “How do you know—I want to be clear—how do you know,” he asked, sternly meeting his eyes, “that she left the house last night to meet them? That she was there to meet them? Have you evidence?” He could not believe that a woman of his class, of his race, would do this thing.
“Evidence?” Nadin answered coolly. “Plenty!” And he told the story of the foot-prints, and of Mr. Sutton’s experiences in the night; and added that one of the child’s woollen mits had been found between the bottom-boards of a boat beached at that spot—a boat which bore signs of recent use. “If you are not satisfied and would like to see his reverence,” he continued, “and question him before you see her—shall I send him to you?”
“Ay, send him,” Clyne said with an effort. He had been incredulous, but the evidence seemed overwhelming. Yet he struggled, he tried to disbelieve. Not because his thoughts still held any tenderness for the girl, or he retained any remnant of the troublesome feeling that had haunted him; for the shock of the child’s abduction had driven such small emotions from his mind. But with the country rising about him, amid this gathering of men upon whom he had no claim, but who asked nothing better than to be brought face to face with the authors of the outrage—with these proofs of public sympathy before his eyes it seemed impossible that a woman, a girl, should wantonly set herself on the other side, and shield the criminals. It seemed impossible. But then, when the first news of her elopement with an unknown stranger had reached him, he had thought that impossible! Yet it had turned out to be true, and less than the fact; since the man was not only beneath her, but a radical and a villain!
“But I will see Sutton,” he muttered, striving to hold his rage in check. “I will see Sutton. Perhaps he may be able to explain. Perhaps he may be able to put another face on the matter.”
The chaplain would fain have done so; more out of a generous pity for the unfortunate girl than out of any lingering hope of ingratiating himself with her. But he did not know what to say, except that though she had gone to the rendezvous she had not seen nor met any one. He laid stress on that, for he had nothing else to plead. But he had to allow that her purpose had been to meet some one; and at the weak attempt to excuse her Clyne’s rage broke forth.
“She is shameless!” he cried. “Shameless! Can you say after this that she has given up all dealings with her lover? Though she passed her word and knows him for a married man?”
The chaplain shook his head.