Bishop assented in a low tone, and Gilson went out to give the order. Hornyold said something to Clyne and they talked together in low tones and with averted faces. Then, still talking, they moved to the door and went out without looking towards her. The clerk gathered up his papers, handed one to Bishop, and fastened the others together with a piece of red tape. That done, he, too, rose and followed the magistrate, making her an awkward bow as he passed. Mr. Sutton alone remained, and, pale and excited, fidgeted to and fro; he could not bear to stay, and he could not bear to leave the girl alone with the officers. Possibly—but to do him justice this went for little—he might by staying commend himself to her, he might wipe out the awkward impression made by the night’s adventure. But Clyne put in his head and called him in a peremptory tone; and he had to go with a feeble apologetic glance at her. She was left standing by the table, alone with the officers.
For an instant she looked wildly at the door. Then, “May I go to my room now?” she asked in a low tone.
“Not alone,” Nadin answered—but civilly, for him. “In a moment the woman will be here, and you can go with her. It’s not quite regular, but we’ll stretch a point. But you must not be long, miss! You’ll have no need,” with a faint grin, “of many frocks, or furbelows, where you’re going.”
CHAPTER XXII
MR. SUTTON’S NEW RÔLE
When the chaise which carried the prisoner to Kendal had left the inn, and the search parties had gone their way under leaders who knew the country, and the long tail of the last shaggy pony had whisked itself out of sight, a dullness exceeding that of November settled down on the inn by the lake. The road in front ran, a dull, unbroken ribbon, along the water-side; and alone and melancholy the chaplain walked up and down, up and down, the last man left. Occasionally Mrs. Gilson appeared at the door and looked this way and that; but her eye was sombre and her manner did not invite approach or confidence. Occasionally, too, Modest Ann’s face was pressed against the window of the coffee-room, where she was setting out the long table against evening; but she was disguised in tears and temper, and before Mr. Sutton could identify the phenomenon, or grasp its meaning, she was gone. The frosty promise of the morning had vanished, and in its place leaden clouds dulled sky and lake, and hung heavy and black on the scarred forehead of Bow Fell. Mr. Sutton looked above and below, and this way and that, and, too restless to go in, found no comfort without. He wished that he had gone with the searchers, though he knew not a step of the country. He wished that he had said more for the girl, and stood up for her more firmly, though to do so had been to quarrel with his patron. Above all, he wished that he had never seen her, never given way to the temptation to aspire to her, never started in pursuit of her—last of all, that he had never stooped to spy on her. He was ill content with himself and his work; ill content with the world, his patron, everybody, everything. No man was ever worse content.
For Nemesis in an unexpected form was overtaking, nay even as he walked the road, had overtaken the chaplain. He had come to marry, he remained to love; he had come to enjoy, he remained to suffer. He had come, dazzled by the girl’s rank and fortune, that rank and that fortune which he had thought so much above himself, and to which her beauty added so piquant and delicate a charm. And, lo, it was neither her rank, nor her fortune, nor her beauty that, as he walked, beat at his heart and would be heard, would have entrance; but the girl’s lonely plight and her disgrace and her trouble. On a sudden, as he went helplessly and aimlessly and unhappily up and down the road, he recognised the truth; he knew what was the matter with him. His eyes filled, his feelings overcame him—and no man was ever more surprised. He had to walk a little way down the road before, out of ken of the horse, he dared to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Nor even then could he refrain from one or two foolish, unmanly gasps.
“I did not think that I was—such a fool!” he muttered. “Such a fool! I didn’t think it!”
When he regained command of himself he found that his feet had borne him to the gate-pillar where so much had happened the previous day. To the very place where he had surprised Henrietta as she arranged her signal, and where she had so nearly surprised him in the act of watching her! In his new-born repentance, in his newborn honesty he hated the place; he hated it only less than he hated the conduct of which it reminded him. And partly out of sentiment, partly out of some unowned notion of doing penance, he turned and slowly retraced her course to the inn, treading as far as possible where she had trodden. When he reached the door he did not go in, but, unwilling to face any one, he went on as far as a seat on the foreshore, where he had seen her sit. And the sentiment of her presence still forming the attraction, he wondered if she had paused there on that morning, or if she had gone indoors at once.
He was so unhappy that he did not feel the cold. The thought of her warmed him, and he sat for a minute or two, with his eyes on the gloomy face of the lake that, towards the farther shore, frowned more darkly under the shadow of the woods. He wished that he understood her conduct better, that he had the clue to it. He wished that he understood her refusal to speak. But right or wrong, she was in trouble and he loved her. Ay, right or wrong! For good or ill! Still he sighed, for all was very dark. And presently he went to rise.
His eyes in the act fell on a few scraps of paper which lay at his feet and showed the whiter for the general gloom. Letters were not so common then as now. It was much if one person in five could write. The postage on a note sent from the south of England to the north was a shilling; the pages were crossed and recrossed, were often read and cherished long. Paper, therefore, did not lie abroad, as it lies abroad now; and Mr. Sutton—hardly knowing what he did—bent his eyes on the scraps. He was long-sighted, and on one morsel a little larger than its neighbours, he read the word “gate.”