“No, no!”
“Yes,” the chaplain rejoined firmly. “I do not know how I know it,” he continued with dignity, “but I know it. For one thing, I am not blind. Miss Damer has never given me a word or a look of encouragement. If she thanks me,” he spoke with something like a tear in his eye, “it will be much—the kind of thanks you, Captain Clyne, give the servant that lacquers your boots, or the dog that fetches your stick. But you—with you it will be different.”
“She has no reason to thank me,” Clyne declared.
“Yet she will.”
“No.”
“She will!” Sutton answered fervently—he was determined to carry out his impulsive act of unselfishness. “And, thank you or not thank you, she may speak. She will speak, when released, if ever! She is one who will do nothing under compulsion, nothing under durance. But she will do much—for love.”
Clyne looked with astonishment at the chaplain. He, like Mrs. Gilson, was appraising him afresh, was finding something new in him, something unexpected. “How do you know?” he asked, his cheeks reddening.
There were for certain tears in Mr. Sutton’s eyes now.
“I don’t know how I know,” he said, “but I do. I know! Go and fetch her; and I think, I think she will speak.”
Clyne thought otherwise, and had good reason to think otherwise; a reason which he was ashamed to tell his chaplain. But in the face of his own view he was impressed by Sutton’s belief. The suggestion was at least a straw to which he could cling. Failing other means—and the ardour of his assistants in the search was beginning to flag—why should he not try this? Why should he not, threats failing, throw himself at the girl’s feet, abase himself, humble himself, try at least if he could not win by prayer and humility what she had refused to force.